ill 


SMM 


*m®<mm 


l;lllillil 


.';;c:M' 


THE  HISTORY 


OF  THE 


WORKING  AND  BURGHER  CLASSES. 


HISTORY 


OF  THE 


WORKING 


AND 


BURGHER    CLASSES 


BY 
M.  ADOLPHE  GRANIER  DE  CASSAGNAC, 

PARIS,'  FRANCE,  A.D.  1838. 


TRANSLATED  BY 

BEN.  E.  GREEN, 

OF  DALTON,  WHITFIELD  CO.,  GEORGIA. 


A 


PHILADELPHIA: 
CLAXTON,  REMSEN  &  HAFFELFINGER, 

819  AND  821  MARKET  STREET. 
1871. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871,  by 

CLAXTON,  REMSEN  &  HAFFELFINGER, 
in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of   Congress,  at  Washington. 

STEREOTYPED  BY  J.  PAGAN  &  SON,  PHILADELPHIA. 


TO  THE 
WORKING   AND   BURGHER   CLASSES   OF   AMERICA, 

UNDER  WHICH  DESIGNATION  I  INCLUDE,  NOT  ONLY  "  LABORERS,  MECHANICS, 

HUSBANDMEN,  AND  MERCHANTS    IN   GENERAL,"  BUT  ALSO  LAWYERS, 

PHYSICIANS,  MINISTERS    OF   THE   GOSPEL,  AND  ALL  OTHERS 

OF  THE  LEARNED  PROFESSIONS,  —  ALL,  WHO  LIVE, 

AND  SEEK  TO  GROW  RICH,  BY  THE  FRUITS 

OF  THEIR  OWN  LABOR  AND 

INDUSTRY, 

WHETHER  OF  THE  HEAD, 

OR  OF  THE  HAND  ;    AND  NOT  BY  THE 

"  SUBTLE  AND  ARTFUL  FISCAL  CONTRIVANCES  " 

OF  MODERN  CLASS  LEGISLATION,  NOR  BY  PUBLIC  OFFICE 

AND    PUBLIC    PLUNDER,  —  THIS    WORK  .IS    RESPECTFULLY 

t&mitfi. 

BY  THE  TRANSLATOR. 


851930 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE vii 

AUTHOR'S  PREFACE  Ixxi 


CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL  IDEA  OF  THE  PROLETARIAT. 

The  working  classes  do  not  exist  among  all  peoples  —  Why  ?  —  No  one  has 
dreamed  of  writing  their  history  —  Gap  which  the  absence  of  that  history 
leaves  in  politics  —  The  working  classes  come  from  the  proletariat  —  Mod 
ern  signification  of  this  word  —  The  proletariat  comprises  working-men, 
beggars,  thieves,  and  prostitutes 81 

CHAPTER  II. 

ORIGIN    OF   THE   PROLETARIAT. 

Political  prejudices  which  the  history  of  the  four  branches  of  the  proletariat 
ought  to  dispel  —  The  proletariat  produced  by  the  emancipation  of  slaves 

—  Among  all  peoples  before  the  emancipation  of  slaves  there  were  neither 
working-men,  nor  beggars,  nor  thieves,  nor  prostitutes  —  Why  ?  —  By  Chris 
tianity  the  proletaries  greatly  multiplied  —  Slavery  having  preceded  the 
proletariat  among  all  peoples,  whence  comes  that  universal  slavery  which 

is  thus  found  among  all  peoples  ?  —  Is  it  a  natural  or  violent  fact  ?    .         .86 

CHAPTER  III. 

ORIGIN   OF   SLAVERY. 

The  first  epoch  of  every  society  contains  two  classes  of  men,  masters  and 
slaves  —  This  fact  anterior  to  all  institutions,  and  therefore  not  instituted 

—  In  what  sense  slavery  may  be  said  to  be  by  divine  right  —  Slavery  is  a 
primitive  and  spontaneous  element  of  all  societies  —  The  history  of  the 
masters  gives  the  history  of  the  slaves  —  Whence  come  masters  ?  —  The 
first  masters  the  first  fathers  —  Of  the  paternal  power  in  noble  families  — 
Names  designating  these  families  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets — Signifi 
cation  of  the  word  plus  —  Paternal  power  absolute  in  noble  families  — 

7 


CONTEXTS. 


PAGE 


Proofs  establishing  this  fact  — Fathers  could  kill  or  sell  their  children  — 
The  first  children  therefore  the  first  slaves  —  This  js  the  only  theory  by 
which  all  the  facts  relative  to  slavery  can  be  explained  — Multiplicity  of 
children  in  the  first  families 95 

CHAPTER  IV. 

ORGANIZATION    OF   SLAVERY    BY    POSITIVE   LAWS. 

Political  institutions,  having  found  slavery  already  established  as  a  fact  in  the 
family,  generalized  it  as  a  right  in  society —  New  sources  of  slavery  opened 
by  positive  laws  — War  — Asylums  — Debt— Marriage  — Explanation  of 
a  passage  of  Homer  —  Slavery,  then,  became  an  institution  in  course  of 
time;  but  it  commenced  as  a  spontaneous  fact  — Positive  laws  sanctioned 
and  regulated,  but  did  not  create  it—  Every  other  theory  contradicted  by 
facts  —  The  noble  and  slave  races,  therefore,  two  primitive  and  contempo- 

-  raneous  facts  —  Together  they  constitute  humanity  —  This  volume  devoted 
to  the  history  of  the  slave  races:  that  of  the  noble  races  will  be  treated 
of  in  another Io8 

CHAPTER  V. 

EMANCIPATION    OF   SLAVES   AND    FORMATION    OF    BURGHERS. 

Meaning  of  the  words  free  race  and  slave  race  in  this  book  —  Slaves  lived 
apart,  multiplied  among  themselves,  and  ended  by  becoming  a  distinct  race 
of  men  — Their  food  —  Their  maladies  —  Until  what  epoch  pure  slavery 
continued  among  nations  —  Beggars  and  hirelings  indicate  the  commence 
ment  of  emancipations  —  Why  ?  — The  ancients  did  not  practise  sys 
tematic  emancipations  —  Christianity  multiplied  emancipations  and  swelled 
the  mass  of  proletaries  —  The  slave  race  always  scoffed  at,  even  by  the 
freedmen  —  Roman  emperors  who  had  been  slaves  —  Emancipated  slaves, 
repelled  from  the  society  of  the  nobles,  form  a  society  of  their  own  — 
This  is  the  commune 117 

CHAPTER  VI. 

GENERAL    IDEA    OF    THE    COMMUNE  —  TWO    KINDS. 

The  commune,  the  government  proper  for  freedmen,  is,  then,  a  universal 
historic  element  —  The  author  dissents  from  received  opinions  on  this  sub 
ject —  Ideas  of  M.  Raynouard  about  the  communes  —  Ideas  of  M.  Au- 
gustin  Thierry  —  These  two  contradictory  systems  both  refuted  by  facts  — 
Ideas  of  M.  Guizot  —  They  are  correct,  but  incomplete  —  We  must  distin- 


CONTENTS.  .  9 

FACE' 

guish  -between  the  spontaneous  and  the  artificial  commune  —  What  the 
author  understands  by  these  words  —  Analysis  of  a  passage  of  Aulus  Gel- 
lius,  misunderstood  by  M.  Raynouard  —  Comparison  of  the  French  com 
munes  of  the  time  of  Philip  Augustus  with  the  Greek  communes  of  the 
time  of  Pericles 131 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   FRENCH    COMMUNE. 

In  what  the  right  of  commune  consists  —  Charter  of  Autun  —  Different 
names  for  the  commune  —  The  names  various,  the  essence  always  the 
same — Errors  of  M.  Augustin  Thierry,  who  only  recognizes  a  commune 
by  the  name  communia,  and  by  the  insurrectional  conspiracy,  giving  to  its 
magistrates  the  name  of  jures — Communes  which  are  not  called  com 
munia —  Jures  who  have  not  conspired — Error  of  those  who  believe  that 
the  commune  only  dates  from  the  twelfth  century  —  Communes  existed  in 
all  ages  of  history  —  Communes  formed  from  the  sixth  to  the  eleventh 
century  —  French  communes  are  of  two  kinds,  one  of  Roman  origin,  the 
other  indigenous  —  Communes  formed  by  freedmen  recently  set  free  — 
Passage  in  the  chronicle  of  the  anonymous  canon  of  Laon  misunder 
stood  by  M.  Augustin  Thierry  —  Communes  contain  two  kinds  of  men  — 
Interior  organization  of  a  commune  —  Error  of  the  constituent  assembly  .  138 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

SYMPTOMS  OF  THE  ANCIENT  COMMUNE HIRELINGS  AND  BEGGARS. 

What  the  author  understands  by  the  ancient  commune  —  Why  he  relies  upon 
the  Bible  —  The  existence  of  hirelings  and  beggars  indicate  the  existence 
of  communal  government  —  Why  ?  —  Beggars  in  the  Odyssey  and  in 
Hesiod;  none  in  the  Iliad  —  Explanation  of  two  passages  of  Homer  .  151 

CHAPTER  IX. 

SYMPTOMS    OF    THE  ANCIENT   COMMUNE ARCHITECTURE. 

Walled  cities  were  communal  cities  —  History  of  architecture  not  written  — 
The  author  gives  a  partial  sketch  of  it  —  Radical  difference  between  iso 
lated  castles  and  associated  houses  —  The  tower  for  the  gentlemen,  the 
party-wall  for  two  burghers  —  Why  noble  families  have  necessarily  inhab 
ited  isolated  castles  —  Signification  of  a  tower  in  architecture  —  Explana 
tion  of  a  passage  in  Horace  —  Character  of  noble  houses  —  Castles  of 
Patroclus,  Hector,  /Eneas,  King  Demetrius,  Herod  the  Great,  Augustus, 


IO  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


Velleda,  Ulysses,  Alcibiades,  Asidates,  Gobryas  —  Platform,  battlement, 
machicolation  —  Associated  houses  —  Formation  of  cities — All  have  a 
castle  for  their  centre  — The  Acropolis  of  Athens?  the  Palace  of  France, 
The  Tower  of  London  —  Town  and  city  —  Open  and  walled  towns  — 
Open  towns  belonged  to  nobles  —  Sparta  —  Walled  towns  were  communal 

Why  ?  —  Houses  associated  in  walled  towns  —  Hotel  de  ville  of  Tegea 

History  of  the  Roman  party -wall  —  The  wall  of  enclosure  the  necessary 

complement  of  houses  built  in  blocks  —  The  wall  of  enclosure  and  the 
party-wall  infallible  signs  of  burghers I56 

CHAPTER  X. 

SYMPTOMS   OF  THE   ANCIENT   COMMUNE  —  JURISPRUDENCE. 

The  author  sketches  the  history  of  property  —  Noble  and  burgher  property 

—  Their  characteristics  —  Burgher  property  only  found  in  walled  cities  — 
Noble  property  only  found  without  walls  —  The  existence  of  walled  towns 
proves  the  existence  of  burghers  —  There  were  communes  in  the  walled 
towns  —  At  Jericho,  Troy,  Gortyna,  and  Calydon     .         .         .         .  173 

CHAPTER  XL 

THE   PEASANTS. 

Historians  have  forgotten  the  peasants  —  Why  ?  —  This  forgetfulness  renders 
general  history  incomplete  —  The  history  of  the  peasants  requires  the  pre 
vious  history  of  the  landed  proprietors  —  Sketch  of  this  —  There  was  a 
Greek  and  Roman  feudality  anterior  to  the  emancipation  of  the  communes 
in  Italy  and  Greece  —  Proofs  of  this  fact  —  The  words  vassal  and  arritre 
vassal  belong  to  the  ancient  Roman  law  —  Proofs  —  The  expression  sr/" 
of  the  glebe  found  in  a  law  of  Honorius  and  Theodosius  —  What  proletaries 
were  in  the  ancient  Roman  law — Foundation  of  towns  and  villages  — 
Exact  idea  of  the  peasants  of  antiquity  —  Law  of  the  Emperor  Anastasius 

—  Revolution  in  the  cultivation  of  lands  —  Different  kinds  of  peasants  — 
The  words  gentleman,  chevalier  (knight),  baron,  count,  marquis,  duke, 
prince,  taken  from  the  Latin  language  —  Establishment  of  fairs  among  the 
ancients 182 

CHAPTER  XII. 
ANCIENT  TRADES'  UNIONS — FORMATION. 

Slaves  having  attained  the  commune,  or  feudalism,  some  labor,  and  form  the 
trades'  unions ;  others  do  not  labor,  and  become  beggars  and  thieves  — 
Trades'  unions  existed  from  the  time  of  Solomon  in  Judea ;  from  the  time 


CONTENTS.  II 

PAGB 

of  Theseus  in  Greece ;  from  the  time  of  Numa  in  Italy  —  Proofs  —  Three 
epochs  in  the  Roman  trades'  unions  —  Purpose  and  use  of  these  unions  — 
Their  employment  by  government  —  Two  kinds  of  Roman  trades'  unions 

—  Commercial  unions  —  Industrial  unions  —  Number  and  functions  of  the 
first  —  Sailors  —  Bakers  —  Butchers  —  Internal   organization  —  Enumera 
tion  of  the  industrial  unions     .         . .198 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
ANCIENT  TRADES'  UNIONS — DEVELOPMENT. 

Transition  of  the  Roman  unions  from  the  free  to  the  obligatory  state  —  His 
tory  of  their  reform  up  to  the  time  of  Trajan  —  They-  become  a  necessary 
corps  —  Members  could  not  leave  —  They  could  not  sell  their  property  — 
The  unions  seized  upon  the  person,  property,  and  family  of  every  member 

—  Their   inconveniences  —  Their   advantages  —  Their   revenues — Their 
endowments  —  Their  privileges  —  Their   legacies  —  Alienability  of  their 
property  —  Their  flourishing  epoch 213 

CHAPTER  XIV. 


Their  decline  commenced  with  Constantine  —  Its  cause  —  They  were  respon 
sible  for  part  of  the  taxes  —  They  were  victims  of  the  insolvency  of  the 
farmers  of  the  domain  —  Ruined  by  the  foolish  extravagance  of  the  empe 
rors —  Caligula  —  Claudius  —  Nero  —  Disorganization  of  the  unions  — 
They  reclaim  their  fugitive  members  —  Their  fragments  —  Later,  one  of 
these  fragments  formed  the  Commune  of  Paris 225 

CHAPTER  XV. 

BEGGARS   AND   HOSPITALS. 

Beggars  are  not  ancient  —  Why  ?  —  Few  when  Christianity  came  —  Roman 
beggars  —  The  ancients  had  no  hospitals  —  Christianity  multiplied  *the 
poor  —  Pauperism  in  Italy  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  —  Why  Chris 
tianity  multiplied  the  poor  —  Foundation  of  hospitals  —  Different  kinds  .  235 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

LITERARY   SLAVES. 

Three  kinds  of  slaves  seek  to  rise  above  their  condition  —  Literary  slaves  — 
Courtesans  —  Bandits  —  Slaves  only  cultivate  some  literary  specialties  — 


12  CONTENTS. 

FACE 

Slave  grammarians  —  Their  history  —  Slaves  do  not  cultivate  rhetoric  — 
Why  ?  —  History  written  by  gentlemen  —  Slave  p«ets  and  buffoons  —  Their 
history  —  Slave  philosophers  —  Their  history 243 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE   COURTESANS. 

Courtesans  of  houses  of  debauch  —  They  were  slaves  —  Slave  merchants  — 
Their  skill  in  the  toilette  of  women  —  Freedwomen  —  Their  talent  — 
Their  luxury  —  Their  influence  —  Error  of  the  French  elegy-writers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  —  Nearly  all  these  freedwomen  were  Greeks  —  Their 
devotion  —  Their  domestic  life  —  Gentlemen  visited  them  —  The  soiree  — 
Nightly  brawls  —  Serenades  —  The  mother  —  Their  toilette  —  Dress  — 
Errors  of  the  moderns  as  to  dress  of  ancients  —  The  bath — Importance 
of  swimming  among  the  ancients  —  Perfumed  soap  —  Avarice  of  the  freed 
women —  Twenty-three  odes  of  Horace  addressed  to  freedwomen — Ci- 
nara  —  Thargelia  —  Theodota  —  Timandra  —  Lais  —  Flora  —  Aspasia  — 
Praecia 258 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

BANDITS. 

The  ancients  had  no  idea  of  the  equality  of  men  —  Homer,  Plato,  and  Aris 
totle  believed  in  the  duality  of  human  nature  —  Slaves  believed  in  the 
legitimacy  of  slavery — Anecdote  —  Slaves  revolt  from  other  motives  than 
ideas  of  liberty  —  Ten  slave  revolts  —  Caused  by  tampering  with  them,  by 
harshness  of  masters,  and  by  failure  to  execute  the  laws  —  History  of  the 
three  last  revolts  —  Eunus  the  Syrian  —  Athenion  —  Spartacus  —  Revolted 
slaves  did  not  preach  the  doctrine  of  equality  —  Thieves  and  pirates  result 
from  slave  revolts  —  Guards  —  Troops  (gendarmerie) — Brigand  bands  of 
10,000  men  —  The  brigand  Tabary  —  The  pirates  —  Their  history  —  They 
were  slaves  —  Agathocles 274 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
MODERN  TRADES'  UNIONS. 

Objection  to  the  historic  theory  of  this  book  —  Why  were  there  no  communes 
nor  trades'  unions  in  France  before  the  twelfth  century  ?  —  Answer  —  In 
what  the  barbarism  of  the  barbarians  of  the  North  consisted  —  The  revo 
lutions  in  the  family  serve  to  measure  degrees  of  civilization  —  The  peoples 
of  the  North  had  passed  through  fewer  phases  of  the  family  —  This  con 
stituted  their  barbarism  —  Backset  impressed  on  the  Roman  world  by  the 


CONTENTS.  13 

PAGS 

invasion  —  Error  of  Vico  —  The  invasion  suspended  emancipations  — 
Everything  recommenced  in  Gaul  —  Seven  centuries  required  for  Gaul  to 
get  back  to  the  point  where  the  invasion  found  it  —  Condition  of  Gaul  at 
the  time  of  the  invasion  —  Error  of  the  Abbe  Dubos,  Montesquieu,  and  M. 
de  Savigny  —  The  barbarians  destroyed  the  trades'  unions  incompletely  — 
Traces  of  trades'  unions  through  the  middle  ages  —  Trades'  unions  organ 
ized  under  St.  Louis  — The  public  powers  that  governed  Paris  —  Prevot  of 
merchants  —  PreV6t  of  Paris  —  Stephen  Boileau  regulates  the  trades' 
unions  —  The  register  of  trades  contains  the  statutes  of  one  hundred  pro 
fessions  —  The  trades'  unions  considered  in  their  relation  to  the  State  — 
Authorization  —  Considered  in  relation  to  their  members  —  Liberty  —  Ap 
prentices —  Conditions  of  apprenticeship  —  Unions  considered  in  them 
selves  —  Administration  —  Community  and  fraternity  —  Invocation  of 
saints  —  The  corps  and  the  trades  (metiers}  —  The  prud'hommes  —  Juris 
diction —  The  six  corps  of  Paris  —  Their  history  —  Their  heraldry  —  Use 
fulness  of  trades'  unions  —  Causes  of  their  fall  —  Blindness  of  the  con 
stituent  assembly  ...  ........  289 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Summary  ............     327 

Postscript  to  Translator's  Preface 329 

Addenda  to  Translator's  Preface 343 

Index  to  Translator's  Preface 351 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 


FOR  several  years  prior  to  the  Civil  War  in  America,  the 
late  STEPHEN  COLWELL,  of  Philadelphia,  withdrawing 
from  active  business,  had  shut  himself  up  in  his  library,  devot 
ing  himself  principally  to  the  study  of  Political  Economy,  on 
which  subject  his  work  on  "  The  Ways  and  Means  of  Pay 
ment"  is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  ablest  ever  given  to  the  public. 
Absorbed* in  this  study  from  his  own  personal  standpoint, 
that  of  a  retired  merchant  and  manufacturer,  he  gave  little 
attention  to  matters  of  general  politics  occurring  around  him. 

The  news  of  the  "  Great  Rebellion  "  reached  him  in  the 
privacy  of  his  library,  and  he  again  emerged  into  active  life. 
Believing,  like  many  other  able  and  good  men  at  the  North, 
that  the  war  was  a  "  slaveholders'  rebellion,"  and  that  every 
thing  should  be  sacrificed  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union, 
he  took  an  active  part  in  sustaining  the  Government.  By 
degrees  he  became,  under  the  excitements  of  the  war,  a  thor 
ough  -  going  Abolitionist.  He  took  great  interest,  and  was 
one  of  the  most  active  agents  and  liberal  contributors,  in 
sending  teachers  South  to  instruct  the  negroes. 

When  the  war  was  over,  he  went  to  Paris,  and  again  shut 
himself  up  in  the  libraries  of  that  city.  There  he  found  De 
Cassagnac's  "  History  of  the  Laboring  and  Burgher  Classes." 
Struck  with  the  great  erudition  of  the  work,  and  its  peculiar 
views,  he  went  to  a  book-dealer,  and  gave  orders  for  the  pur 
chase  of  every  copy  that  could  be  found  for  sale  in  Paris.  It 
was  out  of  print,  and  he  could  only  secure  three  copies. 


viii  TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE. 


him:in.Philadelphia  in  1868.  In  a  brief  interview,  in 
whfch  I  -gave  fiirri  '*  my  views  of  the  causes  and  results  of  the 
:\Var,:f\e:  paid'md  the'  compliment  of  saying  that  I  had  studied 
VncT  understood  't'Ke*  subject  better  than  any  one  whom  he 
had  met  ;  that  he  had  brought  this  book  from  Paris  to  have 
it  translated  and  published  in  the  United  States  ;  that  he  was 
too  old  to  do  it  himself,  and  had  been  looking  for  some  one 
qualified  for  the  task.  He  urged  me  to  do  it,  and  gave  me 
the  book. 

Perhaps  it  is  due  to  myself,  and  to  my  old  preceptors 
of  Georgetown  College  and  the  University  of  Virginia,  to 
whose  thorough  training  I  am  indebted  for  whatever  merit 
there  may  be  in  the  translation,  that  I  should  disarm  the 
critics  in  advance,  by  an  apology  for  any  errors.  Most  of 
this  work  has  been  done  hurriedly,  under  the  pressure  of 
much  business  and  many  cares,  of  my  own  and  of  others,  at 
my  home  in  Georgia,  without  access  to  dictionaries  or  books 
of  reference,  to  compensate  for  twenty  years'  disuse  of  the 
Latin  and  Greek,  and  fifteen  years'  disuse  of  the  French  lan 
guage  ;  and  I  have  sought  always  to  give  the  author's  exact 
meaning,  sometimes  perhaps  sacrificing  classic  English  to  the 
exigencies  of  a  close  translation  from  the  French. 

This  History  was  published  in  Paris  in  1838,  and  is  now  for 
the  first  time  offered  to  the  American  public.  Heretofore  it 
has  been  accessible  to  a  very  few  only  of  the  very  few  Amer 
ican  readers  of  this  class  of  French  works.  But  through  these 
few,  some  of  the  author's  ideas,  very  soon  after  their  publica 
tion  in  Paris,  began  to  permeate  into  the  American  mind,  and 
in  course  of  time  they  became  part  of  the  political  creed  of  a 
great  party  in  the  United  States,  resulting  in  the  greatest  and 
bloodiest  civil  war  of  recorded  time. 

De  Cassagnac  starts  out  with  the  declaration  that  his  book 
is  one  of  history,  and  not  of  politics.  Evidently  he  was  a 
student;  poring  over  musty  tomes  ;  delighting  in  books,  old 
and  new  ;  absorbed  in  the  solution  of  the  facts  and  philosophy 


TRANSLATOR   S    PREFACE.  IX 

of  history.  Certainly,  so  far  as  depends  on  ancient  and  mod 
ern  law,  history,  and  literature,  he  has  in  his  seven  years  of 
preparatory  study  treated  his  subject  exhaustively,  and,  as  an 
historian,  faithfully.  But  he  probably  little  dreamed  that  in 
less  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  on  another  continent, 
his  ideas  would  take  a  new  form  of  expression  in  the  dogma 
that  "  free  labor  is  cheaper  than  slave  labor,"  and  drench  that 
continent  in  blood. 

De  Cassagnac  dedicates  his  work  to  M.  Guizot.  Guizot 
was  not  a  mere  closet  student.  He  was  a  statesman,  intent 
on  giving  to  the  facts  of  history  a  gloss  to  suit  the  political 
purposes  of  the  royal  master,  whose  throne  he  sought  to 
establish.  He  was  the  trusted  minister  of  King  Louis  Phi 
lippe,  whose  every  thought  was  directed  to  the  perpetuation 
of  his  dynasty,  and  the  repression  of  the  "fierce  democracie" 
of  France.  A  translation  of  Guizot's  Lectures  on  the  History 
of  Civilization  was  published  in  this  country  in  1838,  about 
the  time  that  De  Cassagnac's  book  appeared  in  Paris.  Those 
lectures  were  prepared  for  a  special  purpose :  to  strengthen 
the  throne  of  Louis  Philippe,  by  presenting  to  France  cen 
tralization  and  monarchy,  as  represented  by  the  Orleans  dyn 
asty,  in  their  most  attractive  lights  and  colors.  Guizot  taxed 
his  great  abilities  to  the  utmost  to  prove  that  "  whenever  the 
reflection  or  the  imagination  of  men  has  especially  turned  toward 
the  contemplation  or  study  of  legitimate  sovereignty,  and  of  its 
essential  qualities,  it  has  inclined  toward  monarchy"  and  that 
"  republicanism,  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances,  does  not 
contain  the  principles  of  progress,  duration,  and  extension." 

Perhaps  for  the  reason  that  the  Americans  are  a  more 
book-reading  people  than  the  French,  it  is  probable  that  M. 
Guizot  had  more  readers  —  and  it  is  not  going  too  far  to  say, 
more  converts  —  in  the  United  States  than  in  France ;  and 
what  was  written  with  special  reference  to  a  political  effect 
in  France,  exerted  a  potent  influence  in  bringing  about  the 
civil  war  in  America.  M.  Guizot  has  lived  to  see  a  great 


x  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

party  in  the  United  States,  under  the  name  of  that  repub 
licanism  which  he  sought  to  disparage  in  France,  preparing 
the  way  for  that  centralization,  which,  to  use  his  language, 
"  naturally  and  as  if  by  instinct,"  inclines  the  minds  of  men 
to  monarchy.  Lest  any  of  my  readers  should  be  startled  at 
this  assertion,  and  a  prejudice  be  thereby  aroused  to  hinder 
a  dispassionate  reception  of  what  more  I  have  to  say,  I  ask', 
have  they  ever  heard  Mr.  Sumner's  lecture  on  "  Are  we  a 
Nation?"  and  read  M.  Guizot's  Lecture  XL,  on  the  "  Central 
ization  of  Nations  and  Governments  ?  " 

Lest  any  of  my  readers  may  have  fought  under  Grant  or 
Sherman,  and  should  throw  down  this  book  in  disgust  at  the 
bare  intimation  that  they  carried  fire  and  sword  and  famine 
into  the  South,  in  the  interests  of  centralization  and  mon 
archy,  let  me  here  quote  briefly  from  M.  Guizot's  eleventh 
lecture : 

"  Europe,  however,  was  then  (at  the  close  of  the  fourteenth 
century)  very  far  from  understanding  her  own  state,  such  as 
I  have  now  endeavored  to  explain  it  to  you.  She  did  not 
know  distinctly  what  she  required,  or  what  she  was  in  search 
of,  yet  set  about  endeavoring  to  supply  her  wants  as  if  she 
knew  perfectly  what  they  were.  When  the  fourteenth  cen 
tury  had  expired,  after  the  failure  of  every  attempt  at  political 
organization,  Europe  entered,  naturally  and  as  if  by  instinct, 
into  the  path  of  centralization.  It  is  the  characteristic  of  the 
fifteenth  century  that  it  constantly  tended  to  this  result ;  that 
it  endeavored  to  create  general  interests  and  general  ideas ; 
to  raise  the  minds  of  men  to  more  enlarged  views ;  and  to 
create,  in  short,  what  had  not,  till  then,  existed  on  a  great 
scale  —  nations  and  governments. 

"The  actual  accomplishment  of  this  change  belongs  to  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  though  it  was  in  the  fif 
teenth  that  it  was  prepared.  It  is  this  preparation,  this  silent 
and  hidden  process  of  centralization,  both  in  the  social  rela 
tions  and  in  the  opinions  of  men  — •  a  process  accomplished, 


TRANSLATOR   S    PREFACE.  XI 

without  premeditation  or  design,  by  the  natural  course  of 
events  —  that  we  have  now  to  make  the  subject  of  our  inquiry. 

"  It  is  thus  that  man  advances  in  the  execution  of  a  plan 
which  he  has  not  conceived,  and  of  which  he  is  not  even 
aware.  He  is  the  free,  intelligent  artificer  of  a  work,  which  is 
not  his  own.  He  does  not  perceive  or  comprehend  it  till  it 
manifests  itself  by  external  appearances  and  real  results  ;  and 
even  then  he  comprehends  it  very  imperfectly.  It  is  through 
his  means,  however,  and  by  the  development  of  his  intelli 
gence  and  freedom,  that  it  is  accomplished.  Conceive  a 
great  machine,  the  design  of  which  is  centred  in  a  single 
mind,  though  its  various  parts  are  intrusted  to  different  work 
men,  separated  from  and  strangers  to  each  other.  No  one  of 
them  understands  the  work  as  a  whole,  nor  the  general  re 
sults,  which  he  concurs  in  producing;  but  every  one  executes, 
with  intelligence  and  freedom,  by  rational  and  voluntary  acts, 
the  particular  task  assigned  to  him.  It  is  thus  that  by  the 
hand  of  man  the  designs  of  Providence  are  wrought  out  in 
the  government  of  the  world.  It  is  thus  that  the  two  great 
facts,  which  are  apparent  in  the  history  of  civilization,  come 
to  co-exist;  on  the  one  hand,  those  portions  of  it,  which  may 
be  considered  as  fated,  or  which  happen  without  the  control 
of  human  knowledge  or  will ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  part 
played  in  it  by  the  freedom  and  intelligence  of  man,  and  what 
he  contributes  to  it  by  means  of  his  own  judgment  and  will." 

When  the  true  history  of  yet  recent  events  shall  have  been 
written,  many,  who  have  been  accustomed  to  believe  that 
President  Lincoln  was  the  author  and  father  of  emancipation, 
will  be  surprised  to  learn  that  to  the  very  last  he  was  averse 
to  it,  and  anxious  to  prevent  the  adoption  of  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  which  was  carried,  not  only 
without  the  concurrence  of,  but  in  direct  opposition  to,  his 
judgment  and  will.  When  he  visited  Richmond,  immediately 
after  the  evacuation  in  1865,  a  message  from  my  father, 
General  Duff  Green,  asking  an  interview,  reached  him  after 


xii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

he  had  re-embarked  and  the  command  had  already  been 
given  to  go  ahead  on  the  return  to  Washington.  He  imme 
diately  stopped  the  steamer,  and  waited  for  my  father  to  come 
aboard.  When  they  met,  Mr.  Lincoln  said,  "  My  dear  old 
friend,  how  are  you,  and  what  can  I  do  for  you  ?  "  My  father 
replied :  "  Mr.  President,  I  went  to  see  you  at  Springfield  in 
December,  1860,  at  the  instance  of  Mr.  Buchanan,  and  with 
the  concurrence  of  Mr.  (Jefferson)  Davis,  to  ask  what  you  were 
willing  to  do  to  avert  the  war.  (a)  I  come  now  on  my  own  ac 
count,  to  ask  on  what  terms  you  are  willing  to  grant  us  peace." 
To  this  Mr.  Lincoln  said  :  "  If  the  South  want  peace,  all  they 
have  to  do  is  to  lay  down  their  arms  and  acknowledge  the 
authority  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  I  cannot 
recall  my  Emancipation  Proclamations,  but  I  am  perfectly  will 
ing  that  the  Supreme  Court  shall  decide  them  to  have  been 
unconstitutional,  null,  and  void.  If  the  South  do  not  wish  to 
give  up  their  slaves,  let  them  call  their  Legislatures  together, 
and  vote  down  the  Thirteenth  Amendment."  The  result  of 
this  interview  between  my  father  and  Mr.  Lincoln,  followed 
up  by  another,  in  which  Judge  Campbell  participated,  was 
that  General  Weitzel  was  authorized  to  call  the  Virginia 
Legislature  together,  for  the  twofold  purpose  —  first,  of  repeal 
ing  the  Act  of  Secession  and  recognizing  the  authority  of 
the  General  Government ;  and,  secondly,  of  voting  down  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment.  On  Mr.  Lincoln's  return  to  Wash 
ington,  a  pressure  was  brought  to  bear  on  him,  that  forced 
him  very  reluctantly  to.  cancel  the  authority  given  to  Gen 
eral  Weitzel  to  convene  the  Legislature.  It  is  well  known  to 
many  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  with  great  difficulty  induced  to 
sign  the  Emancipation  Proclamations.  Perhaps  no  disputed 
fact  in  history  is  susceptible  of  clearer  proof.  But  few  know 
the  historical  fact  that  he  was  avowedly  willing,  and  secretly 
desired,  that  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  should  be  defeated. 

(a)  See  account  of  General  Duff  Green's  visit  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  the  New  York 
Herald,  of  8th  January,  1861. 


Xlll 

Much  has  been  already,  and  ably,  written  on  the  causes 
that  led  to  the  late  civil  war.  The  ablest,  who  have  written 
on  the  subject,  are  probably  the  Hon.  Alexander  H.  Stephens, 
and  Judge  Nicholas,  of  Kentucky,  whose  views  were  con 
densed  in  a  correspondence  between  them,  published  in  the 
National  Intelligencer,  in  the  summer  of  1868.  Mr.  Stephens 
said : 

"  Slavery  so  called,  or  that  legal  subordination  of  the  black 
race  to  the  white,  which  existed  in  all  but  one  of  the  States 
when  the  Union  was  formed,  and  in  fifteen  of  them  when  the 
war  began,  was  unquestionably  the  occasion  of  the  war,  the 
main  exciting  proximate  cause  on  both  sides.  But  it  was  not 
the  real  cause,  the  causa  causans,  of  it. 

"  The  war  grew  out  of  different  and  directly  opposite  views 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  and 
where,  under  our  system,  ultimate  sovereign  power,  or  para 
mount  authority,  properly  resides." 

"  The  truth  is  well  established  that  the  seceding  States 
did  not  desire  war.  Very  few  of  the  public  men  in  these 
States  even  expected  war." 

The  gist  of  Judge  Nicholas's  rejoinder  was  that  the  ques 
tion  of  the  right  of  secession  was  the  real  cause  of  the  war ; 
that  even  a  distinct  recognition  of  rights  in  the  Constitution 
could  never  be  used  for  any  available  purpose ;  because,  if  at 
any  time  attempted  to  be  exercised  by  a  weaker  portion  of 
the  country,  the  only. result  would  be  giving  the  Government 
the  trouble  of  declaring  war  against  and  conquering  it  ;  that, 
as  a  remedy,  the  right  of  secession  proved  unavailable,  and 
had  to  be  abandoned ;  and  that,  therefore,  expediency  and 
policy  required  that  the  South  should,  by  a  total  abnegation, 
deny  that  there  was  ever  any  legitimacy  in  their  assertion  of 
that  right. 

Mr.  Stephens  is,  and  Judge  Nicholas  was,  a  man  of  great 
force  and  ability.  The  former  writes  always  in  the  spirit  of 
a  great  constitutional  lawyer  and  statesman.  The  argument 


xiv  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

of  the  latter  on  this  occasion  amounts  simply  to  an  assertion 
of  the  utter  worthlessness  of  all  constitutional  guarantees ; 
that  might  makes  right;  and  that  the* weaker  party,  to  avoid 
worse  punishment,  should  always  submit  to  whatever  condi 
tions  the  stronger  thought  proper  to  impose.  On  this  occa 
sion  he  sank  far  below  himself;  for  on  others  he  was  unques 
tionably  able.  But  with  all  deference  to  such  authority,  it 
must  be  said  that  neither  have  gone  far  enough  back  to  dis 
cover  the  real  causes  of  the  war.  Both  agree  that  secession 
was  adopted  as  a  peaceful  remedy  —  as  a  bloodless  solution 
of  pre-existing  questions,  involving  the  alternatives  of  civil 
war  on  the  one  hand,  or  submission  to,  what  the  weaker 
party  believed  to  be,  intolerable  wrong  on  the  other.  How 
then  can  that  be  said  to  have  been  the  real  cause  of  the  war, 
which  was  only  resorted  to  as  a  peaceful  remedy  to  prevent 
war? 

We  do  not  understand  Mr.  Stephens  to  mean  that  so  many 
valuable  lives  were  sacrificed,  such  heavy  burdens  imposed 
on  both  sections,  merely  to  decide  an  abstract  question  of 
constitutional  law ;  but  only  that  the  war  would  not  have 
taken  place  when  it  did,  if  the  North,  under  the  lead  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  had  acquiesced  then  in  the  doctrine  of  State  rights, 
including  the  right  of  secession,  which  Massachusetts  asserted 
in  the  war  of  1812,  and  on  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana. 

The  real  causes  of  the  war  existed  long  before  the  right  of 
secession  was  thought  of  in  the  South ;  long  before  it  was 
asserted  by  Massachusetts ;  long  before  the  Constitution  or 
the  Union  was  formed ;  long  before  New  England  began  to 
grow  rich  by  the  importation  and  sale  of  negro  slaves ;  and 
they  still  exist  in  full  force,  now  that  slavery  has  been  abol 
ished  and  the  right  of  secession  suppressed.     They  were  — 
1   ist.  The  irrepressible  conflict  between  monarchy  and  de 
mocracy. 
*  2d.  The  irrepressible  desire  of  capital  to  cheapen  labor. 

From  the  beginning,  the  New  England  mind  inclined  to 


TRANSLATOR   S    PREFACE.  XV 

monarchy,  with  established  orders  of  nobility.  Shortly  be 
fore  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  John  Adams,  their 
greatest  and  favorite  leader,  with  as  much  ability,  with  more 
zeal,  and  with  less  disguise  than  M.  Guizot,  published  a  de 
fence  of  the  New  England  ideas  of  government,  from  which 
the  following  are  extracts  : 

"  The  people  in  all  nations  are  naturally  divided  into  two 
sorts,  the  gentlemen  and  the  simple  men,  a  word  which  is 
here  chosen  to  signify  the  common  people.  By  the  common 
people  we  mean  laborers,  mechanics,  husbandmen,  and  mer 
chants  in  general,  who  pursue  their  occupations  and  industry 
without  any  knowledge  in  liberal  arts  and  sciences,  or  in  any 
thing  but  their  own  trades  and  pursuits."  (See  John  Adams's 
Defence  of  the  Constitution,  vol.  iii.,  p.  458.) 

"The  distinctions  of  poor  and  rich  are  as  necessary  in 
states  of  considerable  extent  (such  as  the  United  States)  as 
labor  and  good  government :  the  poor  are  destined  to  labor, 
and  the  rich,  by  the  advantages  of  education,  independence, 
and  leisure,  are  qualified  for  superior  stations."  (Ibid.,  p.  360.) 

"  A  nobility  must  and  will  exist.  .  .  .  Descent  from  certain 
parents  and  inheritance  of  certain  houses,  lands,  and  other 
visible  objects  (titles)  will  eternally  have  such  an  influence 
over  the  affections  and  imaginations  of  the  people,  as  no  arts 
and  institutions  will  control.  Time  will  come,  if  it  is  not  now, 
that  these  circumstances  will  have  more  influence  over  great 
numbers  of  minds  than  any  considerations  of  virtue  and  tal 
ents."  (Vol.  iii.,  p.  377.) 

"  The  whole  history  of  Rome  shows  that  corruption  began 
with  the  people  sooner  than  the  Senate."  (Vol.  iii.,  p.  327.) 

"  Powerful  and  crafty  underminers  have  nowhere  such  rare 
sport  as  in  a  simple  democracy,  or  single  popular  assembly. 
Nowhere,  not  in  the  completest  despotism,  does  human  na 
ture  show  itself  so  completely  depraved,  so  nearly  approach 
ing  an  equal  mixture  of  brutality  and  devilishism,  as  in  the 


XVi  TRANSLATOR   S    PREFACE. 

last  stages  of  such  a  democracy,  and  in  the  beginning  of  des 
potism,  which  always  succeeds  it."  (Ibjd.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  329.) 

"  It  is  the  true  policy  of  the  common  people  to  place  the 
whole  executive  power  in  the  hands  of  one  man."  (Vol.  iii., 
p.  460.) 

"  By  kings  and  kingly  power  is  meant  the  executive  power 
in  a  single  person."  (Vol.  iii.,  p.  461.) 

44  There  is  not  in  the  whole  Roman  history  so  happy  a 
period  as  this  under  their  kings ;  ...  in  short,  Rome  was 
never  so  well  governed  or  so  happy."  (Vol.  iii.,  p.  305.) 

"  I  only  contend  that  the  English  Constitution  is,  in  theory, 
the  most  stupendous  fabric  of  human  invention.  ...  In  future 
ages,  if  the  present  States  become  a  great  nation,  their  own 
feelings  and  good  sense  will  dictate  to  them  what  to  do ;  they 
may  make  transitions  to  a  nearer  resemblance  of  the  British 
Constitution."  (Vol.  i.,  pp.  70,  71.) 

"  It  (the  aristocracy)  is  a  body  of  men  which  contains  the 
greatest  collection  of  virtue  and  character  in  a  free  govern 
ment;  is  the  brightest  onnament  and  glory  of  the  nation,  and 
may  always  be  made  the  greatest  blessing  of  society,  if  it  be 
judiciously  managed  in  the  Constitution."  (Vol.  iii.,  p.  Il6.) 

"  Mankind  have  universally  discovered  that  chance  was 
preferable  to  a  corrupt  choice,  and  have  trusted  Providence 
rather  than  themselves.  First  magistrates  and  senators  had 
better  be  made  hereditary  at  once,  than  that  the  people  should 
be  universally  debauched  and  bribed."  (Vol.  iii.,  p.  283.') 

Such  were  the  ideas  to  which  the  reflection  and  imagina 
tion  of  the  leading  men  of  New  England  inclined  them  at  the 
time  of  the  adoption  of  that  democratic  form  of  government, 
the  denunciation  of  which  as  "  a  league  with  death  and  cove 
nant  with  hell,"  has  been  in  vogue  in  New  England  down  to 
the  time  when  that  transition  period,  anticipated  by  their  great 
leader,  commenced  by  amending  the  Constitution. 

That  these  ideas  have  not  lost  ground  in  New  England, 
but  have  been  spreading  to  the  Middle  and  Western  States, 


TRANSLATOR  S  PREFACE.  XV11 

appears  by  the  following  extract  from  the  Monthly  Gossip  of 
Lippincott's  Magazine  for  February,  1868: 

"  The  Revile  de  Quinzaine,  of  October  last,  has  a  paper  on 
Harvard  University  and  Yale  College,  which  shows  a  con 
siderable  knowledge  of  the  subject.  The  writer  says,  that 
while  the  system  and  the  division  of  studies  are,  in  the  main, 
the  same  as  those  of  the  English  universities,  yet  important 
improvements  have  been  introduced  from  time  to  time ;  and 
he  truly  remarks  that,  while  Harvard  has  a  certain  aristo 
cratic  tone,  in  Yale  the  forms  and  the  prevailing  ideas  are 
democratic,  (a) 

"  The  proposition  recently  made  in  Congress  to  tax  the  use 
of  armorial  bearings  on  carriages  and  household  furniture  is 
an  eminently  proper  one,  though  it  may  perhaps  cause  some 
amusement  at  our  expense  in  monarchical  countries.  If 
enacted  into  a  law,  the  impost  ought  to  yield  a  handsome 
return  from  New  England,  if  one  may  judge  from  the  fact 
that  the  Heraldic  Journal,  published  by  Wiggin  &  Lunt,  Bos 
ton,  has  completed  its  third  volume.  A  similar  periodical  in 
England,  the  Herald  and  Genealogist,  edited  by  John  Gough 
Nicholls,  has  also  just  completed  its  third  volume,  in  the 
course  of  which  there  are  five  articles  on  '  Anglo- American 
genealogy  and  coat-armor.'  The  New  England  Historical  and 
Genealogical  Register  has  just  issued  its  twenty-first  volume, 
having  started  in  1847;  and  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  New 
England  Historic-Genealogical  Society  is  the  first  one,  par 
ticularly  devoted  to  the  pedigrees  of  families,  ever  formed. 
The  interest  which  Americans  take  in  this  subject  is  also 
evinced  by  the  increasing  number  of  family  histories  which 
are  issuing  from  the  press.  Heretofore  these  works  were 

(a)  The  truth  of  this  statement,  as  to  Harvard,  is  unquestionable  ;  but  if  it  be 
true  that  any  democratic  ideas  prevail  at  Yale,  the  explanation  of  that  phenome 
non  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that,  until  recently,  Yale  has  been  mainly  supported 
by  students  from  the  South  and  West,  while  Harvard  was  altogether  sustained 
by  New  England. 


Xviii  TRANSLATOR  S  PREFACE. 

mainly  confined  to  New  England  and  New  York,  which  were 
settled  before  Pennsylvania  and  the  Western  States ;  but  they 
are  now  appearing  in  other  parts  of  the  Union.  Histories  of 
the  Sharpless,  Darlington,  Levering,  Du  Bois,  Cope,  Mont 
gomery,  Shippen,  Wolfe,  Coleman,  and  Hill  families  have 
been  printed  in  this  State,  and  those  of  the  Buchanan  and 
Sill  families  in  Ohio.  We  hear  that  the  pedigree  of  the  Went- 
worth  family  is  about  to  be  published  in  Chicago  ;  and  that 
Mr.  D.  Williams  Patterson,  of  Pittston,  Pennsylvaniarhas  in 
preparation  the  genealogy  of  the  Grant  family,  which  will 
include  the  pedigree  of  General  Ulysses  S.  Grant.  It  appears 
that  his  ancestor  was  Matthew  Grant,  whose  name  first  occurs 
on  the  town  records  of  Dorchester,  Massachusetts,  April  3, 
1633.  Noah,  the  grandfather  of  the  General,  born  in  Con 
necticut,  June  20,  1748,  and  the  sixth  generation  in  descent 
from  the  Dorchester  emigrant,  came  from  Coventry,  Connec 
ticut,  to  Pennsylvania,  after  the  Revolutionary  War,  and-  set 
tled  here.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Headley's  statement,  that  the  ances 
tor  of  Grant  settled  in  Pennsylvania  on  his  arrival  in  this 
country,  is  therefore  erroneous.  Although  very  frequently 
indeed  these  pedigrees  are  fit  subjects  of  ridicule,  some  link 
in  a  chain  being  assumed  without  proof,  or  some  sign  of  van 
ity  being  exhibited  by  the  degenerate  offspring  of  worthy 
sires  ;  yet  at  the  bottom  of  all  this  there  is,  on  the  whole, 
a  healthy  family-pride,  which  benefits  society,  and  to  which 
no  one,  who  comes  of  virtuous  and  honorable  parentage,  is 
insensible." 

Speaking  of  an  elective  chief-magistrate,  Mr.  Adams  said, 
'  This  hazardous  experiment  the  Americans  have  tried,  and 
if  elections  are  soberly  made,  it  may  answer  very  well ;  but 
if  parties,  factions,  drunkenness,  bribes,  armies,  and  delirium 
come  in,  as  they  have  always  done,  sooner  or  later,  to  embroil 
and  decide  everything,  the  people  must  again  have  recourse 
to  conventions,  and  find  a  remedy  for  this  '  hazardous  experi 
ment.'  Neither  philosophy  nor  policy  has  yet  discovered  any 


TRANSLATOR  S    PREFACE.  XIX 

other  cure  than  by  prolonging  the  duration  of  the  first  magis 
trate  and  senators.  The  evil  may  be  lessened  and  postponed 
by  elections  for  longer  periods  of  years,  until  they  become 
for  life  ;  and  if  this  is  not  found  an  adequate  remedy,  there 
will  remain  no  other  but  to  make  them  hereditary."  (Vol. 
iii.,  p.  296.) 

Observe  that  Mr.  Adams  also  said,  "  The  time  will  come,  if 
it  is  not  now ;  "  and  among  the  signs  of  the  time  he  enumer 
ated  "  bribes,  armies,  and  delirium."  In  this  connection,  the 
organization  of  the  "  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,"  and  the 
establishment  of  the  Imperialist  newspaper  in  New  York, 
just  after  the  war,  to  test  whether  the  time  had  come  for  the 
realization  of  these  views,  by  making  General  Grant  emperor, 
are  signs  of  the  time  not  to  be  overlooked.  The  "  Grand 
Army  of  the  Republic,"  with  all  its  commarfderies  and  com 
manders,  has  so  far  only  served  to  strengthen  the  Democratic 
vote,  by  a  reaction  from  the  delirium  of  the  war;  and  the 
Imperialist  newspaper  expired  with  the  death  of  General  Raw- 
lings,  Grant's  Secretary  of  War.  (a)  This,  however,  does  not 
prove  that  the  monarchical  and  aristocratic  spirit  of  New  Eng 
land  is  dead,  but  only  that  the  time  has  not  yet  come. 

But   there   were    in    New    England   then,    as    now,    some 

(a)  Of  all  the  converts  to  the  logic  of  Adams  and  Guizot,  General  Rawlings 
was  perhaps  the  most  sincere,  the  purest,  the  least  influenced  by  selfish  considera 
tions.  He  had  come  to  believe  that  Rome  was  never  so  well  governed  or  so 
happy  as  under  her  kings,  and  that  the  good  government  and  happiness  of  this 
vast  country  required  that  it  should  be  centralized  into  a  nation  and  governed  by 
an  empevor.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  his  death  was  hastened  by  chagrin  at 
finding  out  that  General  Grant,  whom  he  had  selected  as  the  instrument  for  that 
transition,  was  not  the  right  man.  Bribes  and  armies  are  potent  for  the  subver 
sion  of  democratic  government  and  the  establishment  of  empires ;  but  the  former 
must  be  given,  not  received,  by  the  aspirant  for  imperial  sway.  Plutarch  relates 
of  Sylla  that,  while  praetor,  he  happened  to  be  provoked  at  (Sextus  Julius)  Caesar, 
and  said  to  him,  angrily,  "  I  will  use  my  authority  against  you."  Caesar  answered, 
laughing,  "  You  do  well  to  call  it  yours,  for  you  bought  it."  Whether  true  or 
false,  it  soon  came  to  be  believed  of  General  Grant  that  he  was  more  ready  to 
sell  than  to  buy  his  authority. 


XX  TRANSLATOR   S    PREFACE. 

earnest  and  able  advocates  of  free  government,  as,  for  in 
stance,  Samuel  Adams.  The  sentiment  against  monarchy 
was  so  strong  in  other  portions  of  the  Union,  and  espe 
cially  in  the  slaveholding  States  of  the  South,  that  after  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution,  the  monarchical  party  deemed 
it  prudent  to  assume  the  name  of  Federalists,  as  being  less 
unpopular  than  one  more  indicative  of  their  peculiar  ideas 
and  theories  of  government.  In  the  Boston  Monthly  An 
thology,  for  March,  1807,  the  curious  reader  will  find  some 
verses  (a)  denunciatory  of  the  Republican  party,  in  which 
this  policy  of  assuming  a  name  for  political  purposes  is  thus 
referred  to : 

"And  if  we  cannot  alter  things, 

By  G — ,  we  '11  change  their  names,  sir ! 

True,  Tom  and  Joel  now  no  more 

Can  overturn  a  nation  :  > 

And  work  by  butchery  and  blood, 

A  great  regeneration, — 
Yet,  still  we  can  turn  inside  out 

Old  nature's  constitution, 
And  bring  a  Babel  back  of  names,  — 

Huzza!   for  REVOLUTION." 

The  advocates  of  the  Constitution  as  adopted  were,  and 
called  themselves,  Republicans ;  but  their  opponents  in  New 
England  called  them  Democrats  in  derision.  In  course  of 
time  they  accepted  this  name,  as  indicative  of  their  theory 
that  legitimate  sovereignty  resides  in  the  whole  body  of  the 
people,  and  not  in  a  king  and  nobility ;  and,  as  soon  as  they 
dropped  the  name  of  Republicans  for  that  of  Democrats,  their 
opponents,  the  monarchists,  took  it  up,  and  assumed  it  as  their 
own  party  appellation. 

During  the  session  of   Congress  of  1807-8,  Mr.  John  Q. 

(a)  The  authorship  of  these  verses  was  attributed,  and  no  doubt  correctly,  to 
John  Quincy  Adams.  By  Tom  and  Joel,  Tom  Paine  and  Joel  Barlow,  anti- 
monarchists,  were  referred  to. 


TRANSLATOR,   S    PREFACE.  XXI 

Adams  surprised  his  former  political  opponents  as  well  as 
his  own  party  friends,  by  what  Governor  Giles,  of  Virginia, 
in  an  address  to  the  public,  dated  February  28,  1828,  calls  "  a 
complete  political  somerset  from  the  Federal  (or  monarchical) 
to  the  Republican  (or  democratic)  party."  In  explanation  of 
his  course,  Mr.  Adams  told  Governor  Giles  and  Mr.  Jefferson 
that  the  object  of  the  Federal  (or  monarchical)  party  in  New 
England  "  had  been  for  several  years  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union  and  the  establishment  of  a  separate  confederacy ; 
that  he  knew  this  from  unequivocal  evidence,  although  not 
provable  in  a  court  of  justice ;  and  that,  in  case  of  a  civil 
war,  the  aid  of  Great  Britain  to  effect  that  purpose  would  be 
as  surely  resorted  to  as  it  would  be  indispensably  necessary 
to  the  design."  (a) 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  a  letter  from  Mr.  Jefferson 
to  Governor  Giles,  dated  Monticello,  December  26,  1825  : 

"  You  ask  my  opinion  of  the  propriety  of  giving  publicity 
to  what  is  stated  in  your  letter,  as  having  passed  between 
John  Q.  Adams  and  yourself.  Of  this  no  one  can  judge  but 
yourself.  It  is  one  of  those  questions  which  belong  to  the 
forum  of  feeling.  This  alone  can  decide  on  the  degree  of 
confidence  implied  in  the  disclosure :  whether,  under  no  cir 
cumstances,  it  was  to  be  communicable  to  others.  It  does 
not  seem  to  be  of  that  character,  or  at  all  to  meet  that  aspect. 
They  are  historical  facts,  which  belong  to  the  present  as  well 
as  future  time.  I  doubt  whether  a  single  fact,  known  to  the 
world,  will  carry  as  clear  a  conviction  to  it,  of  the  correctness 
of  our  knowledge  of  the  treasonable  views  of  the  Federal 
party  of  that  day,  as  that  disclosed  by  this  most  nefarious 
and  daring  attempt  to  dissever  the  Union,  of  which  the  Hart 
ford  Convention  was  a  subsequent  chapter;  and  both  of  these 
having  failed,  consolidation  becomes  the  first  book  of  their 
history.  But  this  opens  with  a  vast  accession  of  strength, 

(a)  See  Mr.  Adams's  own  statement  in  National  Intelligencer,  October  21, 
1828. 


xxii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

from  their  younger  recruits,  who,  having  nothing  in  them  of 
the  feelings  or  principles  of  '76,  now*  look  to  a  single  and 
splendid  government  of  an  aristocracy,  founded  on  banking 
institutions  and  moneyed  incorporations,  under  the  guise  and 
cloak  of  their  favored  branches  of  manufactures,  commerce, 
and  navigation,  riding  and  ruling  over  the  plundered  plough 
man  and  beggared  yeomanry.  This  will  be  to  them  a  next 
best  blessing  to  the  monarchy  of  their  first  aim,  and  perhaps 
the  surest  stepping-stone  to  it." 

When  it  was  made  known  that  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams, 
in  explaining  to  Governor  Giles  and  Mr.  Jefferson  his  reasons 
for  joining  the  Republican  or  Democratic  party,  had  charged 
these  treasonable  views  upon  the  Federal  party  of  New  Eng 
land,  some  of  his  late  political  associates,  who  claimed  to  be 
patriots,  while  conscientiously  believing  the  monarchical  form 
of  government  the  best,  retorted  on  him,  by  charging  that 
he  was  still  a  monarchist  at  heart,  and  that  his  conversion 
to  democracy  was  only  pretended.  They  asserted  that  "  in 
1807,  at  the  table  of  an  illustrious  citizen  now  no  more,  he 
(Mr.  Adams)  lamented  tint  fearful  progress  of  the  Democratic 
party  and  of  its  principles,  and  declared  that  'he  had  long 
meditated  the  subject,  and  had  become  convinced  that  the  only 
method,  by  which  the  Democratic  party  could  be  destroyed,  was 
by  joining  ivitJi  it,  and  urging  it  on  ivith  the  utmost  energy  to  the 
completion  of  its  views :  whereby  the  result  zvould  prove  so  ridi 
culous,  and  so  ruinous  to  the  country,  that  the  people  would  be  led 
to  despise  the  principles  and  to  condemn  the  effects  of  Democratic 
policy  ;  and  THEN,'  said  he,  f  WE  MAY  HAVE  A  FORM  OF  GOVERN 
MENT  BETTER  SUITED  TO  THE  GENIUS  AND  DISPOSITION  OF  OUR 
COUNTRY  THAN  OUR  PRESENT  CONSTITUTION."  (a) 

This  charge  made  against  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams  by  his 
then  late  associates  was  denied ;  and  the  attempt  was  made 
to  prove  it  by  the  affidavits  of  Messrs.  Townsend  and  Derby, 
of  the  monarchical  party,  both  men  of  high  standing  in  Mas- 

(a)  See  Boston  Statesman,  November,  1824. 


TRANSLATOR   S    PREFACE.  XX1H 

sachusetts.  The  case  made  by  these  affidavits  against  Mr. 
Adams  was  strong,  but  not  conclusive,  although  they  after 
ward  acquired  much  additional  force  from  Mr.  Adams's  subse 
quent  reaffiliation  with  the  party  whom  his  father,  John  Adams, 
in  one  of  his  letters  to  Cunningham,  styles  the  "Absolute  Oli 
garchy"  and  by  the  bitterness  of  his  hatred  of  Democracy, 
and  of  its  stronghold,  the  Southern  slaveholding  States. 

But  whether  the  charge  was  true  or  false  —  whether  this 
idea  originated  with  John  Quincy  Adams,  or  with  the  mon 
archical  party,  who  brought  the  charge  of  having  originated 
it  against  him,  certain  it  is  that  they  have  since  then  pushed 
it  vigorously  and  successfully.  For  what  can  be  more  or 
better  calculated  to  "  lead  the  people  to  despise  the  principles 
and  to  condemn  the  effects  of  Democratic  policy,"  than  to  see  a 
parcel  of  ignorant  negroes,  recently  slaves,  with  no  knowledge 
of  history  or  jurisprudence,  controlling  the  destinies  of  States 
like  Virginia  and  South  Carolina,  in  the  place  of  such  men 
as  George  Washington,  Thomas  Jefferson,  Madison,  Sumter, 
Marion,  and  Calhoun  ? 

New  England  was  not  only  monarchical.  She  was  also  a 
negro-slave  trader ;  and  it  was  not  until  it  was  discovered 
that  the  effect  of  negro  slavery,  was  to  strengthen  the  dem 
ocratic  principle  of  equality  among  the  whites,  that  negro 
slavery  became  odious  to  New  England.  In  course  of  time, 
it  was  seen  that  the  ownership  of  negro  slaves  carried  with  it 
the  necessity  of  making  color  and  good  conduct  (not  wealth 
and  poverty)  the  only  basis  for  distinction.  In  the  presence 
of  their  black  slaves  and  of  the  poor  white  men,  whom  they 
employed  as  overseers,  and  whose  authority  it  was  necessary 
to  maintain,  the  slave-owners  found  themselves  compelled  to 
treat  the  poor  white  man  as  an  equal,  because  he  was  white, 
and  the  negro  slave  as  an  inferior,  because  he  was  black.  In 
no  other  way  could  they  teach  the  negroes  lessons  of  obedi 
ence  to  their  poor  white  overseers,  or  keep  up  the  personal 
pride,  self-respect,  and  character  of  the  overseers,  which  was 


XXIV  TRANSLATOR   S    PREFACE. 

indispensable,  that  they  might  more  easily  control  the  slaves. 
When,  at  a  later  period,  the  Souther  slaveholders  learned 
that  Old  England  was  seeking  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  United 
States,  as  a  means  of  securing  for  her  own  East-India  pos 
sessions  a  monopoly  of  the  production  of  cotton  and  sugar, 
and  that  the  monarchists  and  aristocrats  of  New  England  had 
united  with  Old  England  against  them,  they  found  it  more 
than  ever  necessary  to  strengthen  themselves  by  inculcating 
upon  their  children  and  neighbors  that  color  and  good  con 
duct  were  the  only  proper  foundation  for  castes. 
*  It  was  this  necessity  of  the  slave-owners — the  necessity  of 
employing  poor  white  men  as  overseers,  and  of  treating  them 
with  respect  in  the  presence  of  the  negro  slaves,  so  as  to  secure 
respect  and  obedience  to  them  from  the  slaves — which,  perhaps 
more  than  all  else,  led  to  the  marked  contrast  between  the 
social  relations  and  distinctions  in  the  non-slaveholding  and 
in  the  slaveholding  States.  In  the  former,  if  a  laboring  man 
had  occasion  to  call  at  the  house  of  a  rich  man,  he  was  kept 
standing  at  the  front  door,  or  at  best  in  the  passage-way, 
until  his  business  was  accomplished.  In  the  latter,  he  was 
invited  to  be  seated  in  the  parlor ;  was  offered  a  glass  of  wine, 
or  whisky  and  water;  was  asked  to  dinner,  if  that  hour  was 
nigh ;  his  family  and  business  affairs,  the  weather,  the  crops 
and  politics  were  discussed,  as  between  equals  and  friends. 
M.  Guizot,  in  his  History  of  Civilization,  comments  on,  and 
attaches  great  importance  to,  an  analogous  effect  of  the  Cru 
sades  on  the  social  relations  of  Europe.  He  says  : 

"During  the  Crusades,  small  proprietors  found  it  necessary 
to  place  themselves  in  the  train  of  some  rich  and  powerful 
chief,  from  whom  they  received  assistance  and  support.  They 
lived  with  him,  shared  his  fortune,  and  passed  through  the 
same  adventures  that  he  did.  When  the  Crusaders  returned 
home,  this  social  spirit,  this  habit  of  living  in  intercourse  with 
superiors,  continued  to  subsist,  and  had  its  influence  on  the 
manners  of  the  age.  .  .  . 


TRANSLATOR   S    PREFACE.  XXV 

"Such,  in  my  opinion,  are  the  real  effects  of  the  Crusades: 
on  the  one  hand,  the  extension  of  ideas  and  the  emancipation 
of  thought;  on  the  other,  a  general  enlargement  of  the  social 
sphere,  and  an  opening  of  a  wider  field  for  every  sort  of 
activity  ;  they  produced,  at  the  same  time,  more  individual 
freedom  and  more  political  unity." 

Such  was  the  effect  of  negro  slavery  in  the  South  on  the 
social  relations  of  the  rich  and  poor  whites. 

I  remember,  when  a  boy,  hearing  the  striking  contrast 
between  the  social  relations  of  the  rich  and  poor  whites  at  the 
South  and  at  the  North,  commented  upon  by  my  father.  It 
was  before  the  days  of  railroads,  when  travelling  was  by  stage 
coach,  and  before  the  Abolition  agitation  had  begun  to  attract 
attention.  He  had  always  lived  in  the  South,  and  was  accus 
tomed  to  the  social  equality  among  the  whites  there  prevail 
ing.  In  a  tour  through  the  Northern  States,  he  rode  gener- 
ally  with  the  stage-driver,  to  see  the  country.  At  the  first 
meal- stand  in  Pennsylvania,  he  was  struck  with  the  fact,  that 
the  whi££.  stage-driver  was  not  permitted  to  take  his  seat  at 
the  same  table  with  the  passengers ;  and,  as  he  progressed 
northward,  he  found  the  rule  universal  that,  in  the  non-slave- 
holding  States,  the  driver  was  required  to  eat  at  a  separate 
and  interior  table.  He  was  long  enough  in  the  Northern  and 
Eastern  States  to  become  somewhat  familiarized  with  this  dis 
tinction  there  made  between  the  rich^  passengers  and  the  poor 
drivers ;  and  as  he  passed  through  Maryland  on  his  returnee 
did  not  notice  whether  the  driver  was  permitted  to  eat  at  the 
passengers'  table  or  not.  From  Washington  City  he  started 
on  a  similar  tour  through  the  Southern  States.  The  first  day 
out  in  Virginia,  he  reached  the  meal-stand  with  a  traveller's 
appetite,  and,  seeing  dinner  ready,  he  was  about  to  take  his 
seat ;  but  was  stopped  and  told  by  the  waiter  that  the  pas 
sengers  must  wait  until  the  driver  —  a  white  man  —  who  was 
washing  his  hands,  was  ready  to  take  his  seat  with  them. 
This  little  circumstance  caused  him  to  be  more  observant  of 
3 


xxvi        TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

the  absence  of  the  New-England  social  distinction  between 
the  poor  and  the  rich,  and  of  this  scteiai_e_quality  among  the 
\vhj£e£,  which  he  found  everywhere  a  prominent  character 
istic  of  the  slaveholding  States? 

From  having  heard  my  father  speak  of  this,  now  nearly 
thirty  years  ago,  and  often  since,  my  own  attention  was  called 
to  it,  and  in  a  very  extensive  observation  in  all  the  slave- 
holding  States,  I  have  found  it  universal,  and  more  strongly 
developed  as  the  Abolition  agitation  progressed.  Shortly 
before  the  war,  I  was  visiting  one  of  the  largest  slavehold 
ers,  (a)  a  truly  representative  man  of  his  class,  who  had  a  poor 
white  neighbor  employed  digging  a  well.  When  the  first 
bell  rang  for  the  ladies  to  dress  for  dinner,  this  well-digger 
came  out  of  his  hole  in  the  ground,  washed  and  dressed  him 
self,  took  his  seat  at  the  table  with  the  family  and  guests,  and 
seemed  as  much  at  his  ease  as  if  he  had  been  governor  of  the 
State. 

This  privilege  of  color  could  be  forfeited  by  bad  conduct, 
and  by  bad  conduct  only ;  and  when  so  lost,  the  negro  slaves 
despised  the  losers,  and  spoke  of  them  contemptuously  as 
"  mean  white  trash  ;  "  sometimes  as  "poor  white  trash  ;  "  not 
because  they  were  poor,  but  because,  being  white,  they  had 
forfeited  by  misconduct  the  respect  due  to  them  by  virtue  of 
their  white  skins. 

This  tendency:  of_n£grp  slavery,  as  it  existed  in  the  South, 
to  break  down  "  the  distinctions  jof  rich  and  poor  "  whites, 
which  the  monarchical  -  aristocratic  party  of  New  England 
held  to  be  "  as  necessary  in  states  of  considerable  extent 
(such  as  the  United  States)  as  labor  and  good  government," 
gave  a  great  impulse  to  the  agitation  against  negro  slavery, 
which  had  been  originally  set  on  foot  by  paid  agents  of  Old 
England,  with  a  view  of  securing  a  monopoly  of  the  pro- 

(a)  The  planter  here  alluded  to  was  the  late  Colonel  Andrew  P.  Calhoun,  eldest 
son  of  John  C.  Calhoun ;  and  the  well-digger's  name  was,  I  think,  Boggs,  of 
Pickens  District,  South  Carolina. 


TRANSLATOR  S  PREFACE.  XXV11 

duction  of  cotton  and  sugar  for  the  British  East-India  pos 
sessions. 

But  there  was  another  remarkable  tendency  of  negro  slave- s 
ry,  which  made  it  still  more  odious  to  those  who  desired  a 
transition  to  a  nearer  resemblance  of  the  "  British  Constitu 
tion,"  and  therefore  "  lamented  the  fearful  progress  of  the 
Democratic  party  and  of  its  principles."  This  was  its  polit 
ical  effect  on  the  character  of  the  poor  whites,  or  "  common 
people,"  of  the  South.  Their  social  elevation,  the  more  respect 
ful  treatment  secured  to  them  by  the  necessity  of  the  slave 
owners,  as  above  explained,  increased  their  self-respect,  and 
caused  them  to  value  more  highly  their  political  franchises, 
which,  at  the  same  time,  made  them  the  superiors  of  the 
negroes,  and  the  political,  as  well  as  social,  equals  of  their 
rich  white  neighbors.  For  this  reason  bribery  at  elections 
was  a  thing  almost  unknown  at  the  South.  Even  the  most 
abject  of  those,  whom  the  very  negro  slaves  despised  as 
"  poor  white  trash,"  recoiled  from  that  lower  depth  of  degra 
dation —  selling  his  vote.  This  was  strikingly  illustrated 
by  the  testimony  elicited  by  the  Covode  Investigating  Com 
mittee,  1st  Session,  36th  Congress,  vol.  v.,  p.  490.  It  there 
appears  that  bribery  at  elections  had  grown  to  be  a  custom 
ary  thing  with  all  parties  in  the  free  States.  The  witness, 
a  Northern  man,  being  asked,  "  Have  all  your  contributions 
been  in  Northern  States  ?  "  replied,  "  Yes,  sir ;  I  do  not  remem 
ber  spending  a  dollar  politically  in  Southern  States.  I  have 
tendered  contributions  there,  but  they  allowed  they  did  not 
use  money  as  we  use  it  in  the  Northern  States." 

In  course  of  time,  another  remarkable  result  of  negro 
slavery  was  developed  and  came  to  be  understood  by  the 
master  minds  of  W.  H.  Seward,  Salmon  P.  Chase,  and  a  few 
others,  although  the  great  majority  of  the  free  and  intelligent 
artificers  of  the  work,  which  they  designed,  did  not  perceive 
or  comprehend  it,  while  executing  the  particular  tasks  as 
signed  to  them,  and  even  now  comprehend  it  very  incom- 


XXV111  TRANSLATOR  S  PREFACE. 

pletely.  Mr.  Seward  misled  the  productive  classes  of  the 
free  States  by  the  specious  dogma  of  "  an  irrepressible  conflict 
between  free  labor  and  slave  labor,"  when  in  fact  there  was 
no  such  conflict ;  the  interests  of  all  labor,  whether  free  or 
slave,  being  identical,  viz.,  to  keep  up  wages  and  keep  down 
the  cost  of  living.  The  real  conflict  was  —  not  between  free 
and  slave  labor  —  but  it  was  between  the  capital  that  hired 
free  labor,  and  the  capital  that  owned  slave  labor.  The 
interests  of  the  former  required  a  system  of  legislation  that 
would  put  down  wages  and  put  up  the  cost  of  living.  The 
interests  of  the  latter  required  a  diametrically  opposite  system. 
Wages  went  into,  and  the  cost  of  living  came  out  of,  the 
pockets  of  the  capital  that  owned  slave  labor.  Wages  came 
out  of,  and  the  cost  of  living  went  into,  the  pockets  of  the 
capital,  that  hired  free  labor.  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Chase 
were  not  long  in  discovering  that  herein  consisted  the  phi 
losophy  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  celebrated  aphorism,  "  The  De 
mocracy  of  the  North  are  the  natural  allies  of  the  Repub 
licans  of  the  South."  They  were  not  slow  to  see  that,  while 
the  interests  and  inclination  of  the  capital  that  hired  free  labor 
called  for  a  system  of  taxation  imposing  heavy  burdens  on 
the  laboring  classes,  the  interests  and  inclination  of  the 
capital  that  owned  slave  labor  required  a  system  of  light 
taxes,  high  wages,  fair  prices  for  the  products  of  labor,  and 
cheap  living.  While  many  of  their  less  discerning  "  work 
men  "  were  surprised  to  see  the  Southern  slaveholders  voting 
and  exerting  their  influence  to  shape  the  legislation  of  the 
country  to  this  end,  and  were  astonished  that  those  whom 
they  were  taught  to  consider  as  the  "  slave  aristocracy," 
should  thus  act  against  the  interests  of  those  whom  they 
were  taught  to  consider  the  true  aristocracy,  and  for  the  in 
terests  of  the  "  common  people,"  (the  laboring  and  produc 
tive  classes  of  the  North,)  Mr.  Seward's  astute  mind  solved 
the  mystery.  He  saw  that  one  peculiar  result  of  negro 
slavery  was  to  identify  the  interests  of  the  Southern  slave- 


TRANSLATOR  S  PREFACE.  XXIX 

holders  and  of  the  northern  working-men  ;  that  it  gave  to 
Northern  labor  in  its  conflict  with  Northern  capital  —  to  the 
"  laborers,  mechanics,  husbandmen,  and  merchants  in  gen 
eral "  of  the  North  in  their  conflict  with  the  aristocracy  —  a 
potent  ally  in  the  slaveholders  of  the  South ;  that  it  joined 
them  together,  as  the  priest  joins  man  and  wife,  and  that  to 
abolish  slavery  would  be  to  divorce  Southern  capital  from 
Northern  labor. 

[Since  the  foregoing  was  written,  Mr.  Attorney-General 
Akerman  has  been  to  Washington  City,  and  was  initiated 
into  the  counsels  of  those,  in  whose  minds  the  designs  of  the 
Government  machine  are  centred.  Returning  to  Georgia, 
he  made  a  speech  in  Representatives'  Hall,  Atlanta,  ist  Sep 
tember,  1870,  by  which  it  clearly  appears  that,  among  other 
things  learned  by  him  in  the  Cabinet  councils,  was  this  fact : 
that  one  of  the  main  objects  and  results  of  the  war  was  to 
divorce  Southern  capital  from  Northern  labor.  His  speech, 
whether  prepared  by  him  or  for  him,  evinces  much  adroitness 
in  view  of  the  objects  to  be  accomplished  by  it.  They  were, 
first,  to  call  the  attention  of  Southern  capital  to  the  fact,  that 
it  is  no  longer  interested  in  opposing  high  taxes,  low  wages 
and  prodigal  Government  expenditures ;  that  it  has  no  longer 
any  interests  in  common  with  the  laboring  classes,  the  "com 
mon  people,"  of  the  North ;  secondly,  to  prepare  the  way  for 
an  election  bill,  by  which  the  ignorant  negroes  of  Georgia, 
voting  early  and  often,  on  several  different  days  and  in  several 
different  counties,  could  be  used  to  neutralize  the  votes  of 
intelligent  white  Democratic  workmen  in  Ohio  or  Pennsyl 
vania.  He  said : 

"  My  friends,  I  am  touching  now  a  serious  topic.  ...  In  the 
United  States,  looking  at  the  white  population  alone,  the  cry 
of  a  conflict  between  capital  and  labor  has  generally  been 
the  cry  of  the  demagogue,  for  the  reason  that  capital  has 
seldom  been  organized  against  labor,  and  labor  has  seldom, 


XXX  TRANSLATOR  S    PREFACE. 

except  in  the  small  way  of  trades'  unions,  been  organized 
against  capital.  .  .  . 

"  How  is  the  problem  affected  by  the  elevation  of  colored  men 
to  freedom  ?  Labor  and  capital  were  in  the  same  hands  here  in 
the  South.  They  have  now  become  DIVORCED  by  emancipation'^ 

In  a  speech,  at  Boston,  shortly  before  the  inauguration 
of  President  Lincoln,  Mr.  Seward  avowed  that,  in  his  theo 
ries  of  government,  he  was  a  disciple  of  John  Adams.  The 
quotations  we  have  given  from  Mr.  Adams's  book  show 
what  those  theories  were.  Mr.  Seward,  then,  believed  that 
"a  nobility  must  and  will  exist;"  that  "the  aristocracy  is  the 
brightest  ornament  and  glory  of  the  nation ; "  that  "  first- 
magistrates  and  senators  had  better  be  made  hereditary  at 
once,  than  that  the  people  should  be  universally  debauched 
and  bribed  ;  "  that  "  the  distinctions  of  poor  and  rich  are  as 
necessary  in  states  of  considerable  extent  (such  as  the  United 
States)  as  labor  and  good  government ; "  and  that  these 
States,  having  become  a  great  nation,  should  "  make  transi 
tions  to  a  nearer  resemblance  of  the  British  Constitution."  (a) 
But  a  thorough,  statesman-like,  philosophic  investigation  of 
the  social  and  political  effects  of  negro  slavery  in  the  South 
also  disclosed  to  him  the  fact,  that  its  tendencies  were  all 
anti-monarchical  and  anti-aristocratic  ;  that  the  slaveholder 
was  surrounded  by  necessities,  which,  in  his  social  treatment 
of  his  poor  white  neighbor,  forced  him  to  become  what  John 
Adams  would  call  a  "vulgar  democrat,"  (b)  and  in  his  political 
action  forced  him  to  vote  with  the  "common  people,"  and 
against  the  monarchical  aristocracy  of  the  North,  for  light 
taxes,  high  wages,  and  cheap  living ;  and,  seeing  this,  he 
declared  that  "  these  States  must  become  all  free ; "  that  negro 
slavery  must  be  abolished,  and  capital  divorced  from  labor. 

M.  Guizot  says : 

"The   struggle   of   classes    constitutes   the   very   fact   of 

(a)  Query  :  Russian  ? 

(£)  See  John  Adams's  Letters  to  Cunningham. 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.        xxxi 

modern  history,  of  which  it  is  full.  Modern  Europe,  in 
deed,  is  born  of  this  struggle  between  the  different  classes 
of  society."  (a) 

The  same  is  true  of  the  United  States.  "We  see  this  strug 
gle  of  classes  in  Mr.  Adams's  book ;  we  see  it  in  the  dogma 
of  the  political  party  that  elected  Mr.  Lincoln  and  made  war 
on  the  South  to  abolish  slavery,  that  free  labor  might  be 
made  cheaper  than  slave  labor;1  we  see  it  in  Chief-Justice 
Chase's  son-in-law's  declaration  at  the  Memphis  Commercial 
Convention  that  labor  must  be  cheapened ;  (b)  we  see  it  in 
the  substitution  of  negro  for  white  printers  in  the  Govern 
ment  printing-office  at  Washington  City;  we  see  it  in  the 
attempt  to  cheapen  the  labor  of  shoemakers  in  Massachusetts 
and  negroes  in  the  South  by  the  substitution  and  competition 
of  the  "  heathen  Chinese ;  "  we  see  it  in  the  trades'  unions 
of  the  North,  and  in  the  National  Labor  Union  of  the  United 
States. 

It  has  long  been  held  by  a  certain  class  of  statesmen  that 
the  United  States  could  never  take  that  rank  among  nations, 
to  which  their  vast  territory  and  great  resources  entitle  them, 
without  manufactures ;  and  that  they  cannot  compete  with 
Europe  in  manufactures  without  reducing  the  wages  of  labor 
in  the  United  States  to  the  standard  of  wages  in  Europe. 
Among  the  living  advocates  of  cheap  labor,  we  again  find 
Mr.  Seward  .and  Chief-Justice  Chase  the  ablest.  The  only 
difference  between  them,  in  this  respect,  is  that  Mr.  Seward, 
residing  in  the  East,  was  a  high-tariff  man,  seeking  to  cheapen 
labor,  by  taxing  labor  for  the  benefit  of  the  capital  that  em 
ployed  labor,  as  well  as  by  abolishing  slavery;  while  Mr. 
Chase,  though  born  and  educated  in  New  England,  moved  in 
early  life  to  the  West,  where  the  protection  theories  were 

(a)  See   Guizot's  History-  of    Civilization,  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,   New    York. 
1837,  p.  184. 
(6)  See  Senator  Sprague's  speech  at  the  Memphis  Convention. 


XXxii  TRANSLATOR   S    PREFACE. 

unpopular,  and  therefore  relied  mainly  on  abolition  to  cheapen 

labor. 

• 

In  searching  for  the  origin  of  the  dogma  that  "  free  labor 
may  be  made  cheaper  than  slave  labor,"  I  find  it  in  M.  de 
Cassagnac's  book.  He  proves,  demonstratively,  that  all 
voluntary  emancipations  on  a  large  scale  have  been  made 
for  the  benefit  of  the  master,  to  get  rid  of  the  care  and  ex 
pense  of  supporting  the  slaves  ;  and  that  the  invariable  result 
of  all  emancipations  has  been  to  produce  four  classes,  viz., 
hirelings,  beggars,  prostitutes,  and  thieves.  The  corollary  is 
that  pauperism  increases  competition  in  the  struggle  for  the 
means  of  existence,  and  increased  competition  tends  to  a 
further  reduction  of  wages,  below  the  cost  of  feeding  and 
clothing  a  slave,  and  taking  care  of  him  in  infancy,  sickness, 
and  old  age. 

About  the  same  time,  viz.,  in  1837,  Mr.  Calhoun,  in  his 
speech  on  the  reception  of  Abolition  petitions,  threw  out,  with 
less  elaboration,  similar  ideas  :  that  the  tendency  of  negro 
slavery  in  the  South  was  to  strengthen  the  principle  of  re 
publican  equality  among  the  whites,  and  that  no  laboring 
class  in  any  part  of  the  world  were  so  well  treated  and  cared 
for,  or  received  so  large  a  share  of  the  products  of  their  labor, 
as  the  negro  slaves  of  the  South.  He  said: 

"  I  appeal  to  facts.  Never  before  has  the  black  race  of 
Central  Africa,  from  the  dawn  of  history  to  the  present  day, 
attained  a  position  so  civilized  and  so  improved,  not  only 
physically,  but  morally  and  intellectually.  It  came  among 
us  in  a  low,  degraded,  and  savage  condition ;  and,  in  the 
course  of  a  few  generations,  it  has  grown  up  under  the  fos 
tering  care  of  our  institutions,  as  reviled  as  they  have  been, 
to  its  present  comparative  civilized  condition.  This,  with  the 
rapid  increase  of  numbers,  is  conclusive  proof  of  the  general 
happiness  of  the  race,  in  spite  of  all  the  exaggerated  tales  to 
the  contrary. 

"  In  the  mean  time,  the  white  or  European  race  has  not 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  xxxiii 

degenerated.  It  has  kept  pace  with  its  brethren  in  other  sec 
tions  of  the  Union,  where  slavery  does  not  exist.  It  is  odious 
to  make  comparisons ;  but  I  appeal  to  all  sides  whether  the 
South  is  not  equal  in  virtue,  intelligence,  patriotism,  courage, 
disinterestedness,  and  all  the  high  qualities,  which  adorn  our 
nature.  I  ask  whether  we  have  not  contributed  our  full  share 
of  talents  and  political  wisdom  in  forming  and  sustaining  this 
political  fabric  ?  and  whether  we  have  not  constantly  inclined 
most  strongly  to  the  side  of  liberty,  and  been  the  first  to  see,  and 
first  to  resist  the  encroachments  of  power.  In  one  thing  only 
are  we  inferior  —  the  arts  of  gain:  we  acknowledge  that  we 
are  less  wealthy  than  the  Northern  section  of  this  Union  ;  but 
I  trace  this  mainly  to  the  fiscal  action  of  this  Government, 
which  has  extracted  much  from  and  spent  little  among  us. 
Had  it  been  the  reverse  —  if  the  exaction  had  been  from  the 
other  section,  and  the  expenditure  with  us  —  this  point  of 
superiority  would  not  be  against  us  now,  as  it  was  not  at  the 
formation  of  this  Government. 

"  But  I  take  higher  ground.  I  hold  that,  in  the  present  state 
of  civilization,  where  two  races  of  different  origin,  and  distin 
guished  by  color  and  other  physical  differences,  as  well  as 
intellectual,  are  brought  together,  the  relation  now  existing 
in  the  slave-holding  States  between  the  two  is,  instead  of  an 
evil,  a  good  —  a  positive  good.  I  feel  myself  called  upon  to 
speak  freely  upon  the  subject,  where  the  honor  and  interests 
of  those  I  represent  are  involved.  I  hold,  then,  that  there 
never  has  yet  existed  a  wealthy  and  civilized  society  in  which 
one  portion  of  the  community  did  not,  in  point  of  fact,  live 
on  the  labor  of  the  other.  Broad  and  general  as  is  this  as 
sertion,  it  is  fully  borne  out  by  history.  This  is  not  the  pro 
per  occasion ;  but  if  it  were,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  trace 
the  various  devices,  by  which  the  wealth  of  all  civilized  com 
munities  has  been  so  unequally  divided,  and  to  show  by  what 
means  so  small  a  share  has  been  allotted  to  those,  by  whose 
labor  it  was  produced,  and  so  large  a  share  given  to  the  non- 


t 
xxxiv        TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

producing  class.  The  devices  are  almost  innumerable,  from 
the  brute  force  and  gross  superstition  of  ancient  times  to  the 
subtle  and  artful  fiscal  contrivances  of  modern.  I  might  well 
challenge  a  comparison  between  them  and  the  more  direct, 
simple,  and  patriarchal  mode,  by  which  the  labor  of  the  Afri 
can  race  is  among  us  commanded  by  the  European.  I  may 
say,  with  truth,  that  in  few  countries  so  much  is  left  to  the 
share  of  the  laborer,  and  so  little  exacted  from  him,  or  where 
there  is  more  kind  attention  to  him  in  sickness  or  infirmities 
of  age.  Compare  his  condition  with  the  tenants  of  the  poor- 
houses  in  the  most  civilized  portions  of  Europe.  Look  at  the 
sick,  and  the  old  and  infirm  slave,  on  the  one  hand,  in  the 
midst  of  his  family  and  friends,  under  the  kind  superintend 
ing  care  of  his  master  and  mistress,  and  compare  it  with  the 
forlorn  and  wretched  condition  of  the  pauper  in  the  poor- 
house.  But  I  will  not  dwell  on  this  aspect  of  the  question. 
I  turn  to  the  political ;  and  here  I  fearlessly  assert,  that  the 
existing  relation  between  the  two  races  in  the  South,  against 
which  those  blind  fanatics  are  waging  war,  forms  the  most 
solid  and  durable  foundation  on  which  to  rear  free  and  stable 
political  institutions.  It  is  useless  to  disguise  the  fact.  There 
is  and  always  has  been,  in  an  advanced  stage  of  wealth  and 
civilization,  a  conflict  between  labor  and  capital.  The  condi 
tion  of  society  in  the  South  exempts  us  from  the  disorders 
and  dangers  resulting  from  this  conflict;  and  this  explains 
why  it  is  that  the  political  condition  of  the  slaveholding 
States  has  been  so  much  more  stable  and  quiet  than  the 
North.  The  advantages  of  the  former  in  this  respect  will 
become  more  and  more  manifest,  if  left  undisturbed  by  inter 
ference  from  without,  as  the  country  advances  in  wealth  and 
numbers.  We  have,  in  fact,  but  just  entered  that  condition  of 
society  where  the  strength  and  durability  of  our  political  in 
stitutions  are  to  be  tested ;  and  I  venture  nothing  in  predict 
ing  that  the  experience  of  the  next  generation  will  fully  test 
how  vastly  more  favorable  our  condition  of  society  is  to  that 


TRANSLATOR  S  PREFACE.  XXXV 

of  other  sections  for  free  and  stable  institutions,  provided  we 
are  not  disturbed  by  the  interference  of  others,  or  shall  have 
sufficient  intelligence  and  spirit  to  resist  promptly  and  suc 
cessfully  such  interferences.  It  rests  with  ourselves  to  meet 
and  repel  them. 

"  Be  assured  that  emancipation  itself  would  not  satisfy  these 
fanatics ;  that  gained,  the  next  step  would  be  to  raise  the 
negroes  to  a  social  and  political  equality  with  the  whites ; 
and  that  being  effected,  we  would  soon  find  the  present  con 
dition  of  the  two  races  reversed.  They  and  their  Northern 
allies  wouloMje  the  masters,  and  we  the  slaves ;  the  condition 
of  the  white  race  in  the  British  West  Indies,  as  bad  as  it  is, 
would  be  happiness  to  ours.  There  the  mother  country  is 
interested  in  sustaining  the  supremacy  of  the  European  race. 
It  is  true  that  the  authority  of  the  former  master  is  destroyed, 
but  the  African  will  there  be  a  slave,  not  to  individuals,  but 
to  the  community;  forced  to  labor,  not  by  the  authority  of 
the  overseer,  but  by  the  bayonet  of  the  soldiery  and  the  rod 
of  the  civil  magistrate." 

Mr.  Calhoun  was  an  ardent,  a  passionate  devotee  of  the 
Union  under  the  Constitution ;  and  it  is  questionable  whether 
Governor  Joseph  E.  Brown,  of  Georgia,  could  have  succeeded 
in  hurrying  the  Southern  States  into  secession  in  1861,  if 
Mr.  Calhoun  had  then  been  living.  Entering  public  life  in 
1811,  he  was  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  zealous  supporters 
of  the  war  of  1812  with  Great  Britain,  in  defence  of  the  rights 
and  interests  of  the  seamen  of  New  England ;  and  his  earnest 
nature  was  soon  shocked  by  discovering  that  the  object  of 
the  so-called  Federal  party  in  New  England  "had  been,  for 
several  years,  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  and  the  establish 
ment  of  a  separate  confederacy,"  by  the  co-operation  of  Great 
Britain. (a)  The  study  of  his  life,  therefore,  was  to  find  in  the 
Constitution  some  balance-wheel,  or  regulator,  which  would 

(a]  See  statement  of  John  Quincy  Adams  in  the  National  Intelligencer,  October 
21,  1828. 


XXXVI          TRANSLATOR  S  PREFACE. 

guard  against  the  danger  of  secession  on  the  one  hand,  or 
centralization  and  despotism  on  the  ather.  Hence  his  modi 
fication  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  doctrine  of  nullification,  as  an  anti 
dote  to  the  New  England  doctrine  of  the  right  of  secession, (#) 

(a]  The  doctrine  of  nullification,  as  laid  down  in  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky 
Resolutions,  and  as  maintained  by  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  others,  made  each 
State,  for  itself  and  separately ,  the  judge  of  any  alleged  infraction  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  and  of  the  "  mode  and  measure  of  redress" 

Mr.  Calhoun's  modification  of  that  doctrine  proposed  to  make  "  all  the  States 
in  convention  assembled"  the  judge  ;  and  meanwhile,  until  such  a  convention  of 
all  the  States  could  he  called  together  for  the  decision  of  the  question,  to  give  to 
each  State  the  right  to  nullify,  or  suspend  the  execution  of  an  obnoxious  and 
unconstitutional  law  temporarily  within  her  borders.  By  this  State  right  of  tem 
porary  suspension,  analogous  to  the  Presidential  veto,  Calhoun  sought  to  protect 
the  weaker  States  from  hasty  and  unjust  legislation ;  while  he  relied  on  the  calm 
deliberations  of  a  convention  of  all  the  States  to  effectually  suppress  the  spirit 
of  secession. 

Mr.  Thomas  Ritchie,  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  Mr.  Francis  P.  Blair,  of 
the  Washington  Globe,  the  National  Intelligencer,  and  others,  admitting  the 
right  of  secession,  opposed  Mr.  Calhoun's  modification  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Kentucky  and  Virginia  Resolutions,  on  the  ground  that  its  effect  would  be  to 
place  a  State  in  the  Union  and  out  of  the  Union  at  the  same  time.  See  Calhoun's 
address  to  the  people  of  South  Carolina.  (Jenkins's  Life  of  Calhoun,  pp.  172- 
173.)  He  said: 

"  How  the  States  are  to  exercise  this  high  power  of  interposition,  which  con 
stitutes  so  essential  a  portion  of  their  reserved  rights  that  it  cannot  be  delegated 
without  an  entire  surrender  of  their  sovereignty,  and  converting  our  system  from  a 
federal  into  a  consolidated  government,  is  a  question  that  the  States  only  are 
competent  to  determine.  The  arguments,  which  prove  that  they  possess  the 
power,  equally  prove  that  they  are,  in  the  language  of  Jefferson,  '  the  rightful 
judges  of  the  mode  and  measure  of  redress?  But  the  spirit  of  forbearance,  as  well 
as  the  nature  of  the  right  itself,  forbids  a  recourse  to  it,  except  in  cases  of  dan 
gerous  infractions  of  the  Constitution ;  and  then  only  in  the  last  resort,  when  all 
reasonable  hope  of  relief  from  the  ordinary  action  of  the  Government  has  failed  ; 
when,  if  the  right  to  interpose  did  not  exist,  the  alternative  would  be  submission 
and  oppression  on  one  side,  or  resistance  by  force  on  the  other.  That  our  system 
should  afford,  in  such  extreme  cases,  an  intermediate  point  between  these  dire 
alternatives,  by  which  the  Government  may  be  brought  to  a  pause,  and  thereby 
an  interval  obtained  to  compromise  differences,  or,  if  impracticable,  be  compelled 
to  submit  the  question  to  a  constitutional  adjustment,  through  an  appeal  to  the 
States  themselves,  is  an  evidence  of  its  high  wisdom ;  an  element,  not,  as  is  sup 
posed  by  some,  of  weakness,  but  of  strength :  not  of  anarchy  or  revolution,  but 


TRANSLATOR  S  PREFACE.          XXXV11 

and  to  the  New  England  spirit  of  centralization  and  monarchy. 
His  last  words  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  when  the 
hand  of  death  was  upon  him; — when  the  ambition  of  this 
world  was  over;  —  were  a  plea  for  the  Union  under  the  Con 
stitution.  His  speech  of  1837,  from  which  we  have  just 
quoted,  was  an  earnest  and  able  appeal  to  the  justice,  good 
sense,  and  self-interests  of  the  laboring  and  productive  classes 
of  the  North,  for  the  Union  under  the  Constitution,  against 
the  Abolitionists,  then  few  in  number  and  generally  regarded 

of  peace  and  safety.  Its  general  recognition  would,  in  a  great  measure,  if  not 
altogether,  supersede  the  necessity  of  its  exercise,  by  impressing  on  the  movements  of 
the  Government  that  moderation  and  justice  so  essential  to  harmony  and  peace,  in 
a  country  of  such  vast  extent  and  diversity  of  interests  as  ours ;  and  would,  if  con 
troversy  should  come,  turn  the  resentment  of  the  aggrieved  from  the  system  to 
those  who  had  abused  its  powers,  (a  point  all-important,)  and  cause  them  to  seek 
redress,  not  in  revolution  or  overthrow,  bttt  in  reformation.  It  is,  in  fact,  properly 
understood,  a  substitute,  where  the  alternative  would  be  force,  tending  to  prevent, 
and,  if  that  fails,  to  correct  peaceably  the  aberrations,  to  which  all  systems  arc  lia 
ble,  and  which,  if  permitted  to  accumulate,  without  correction,  must  finally  end  in 
a  general  catastrophe.'1'' 

See  also  Calhoun's  letter  to  Governor  Hamilton,  of  28th  August,  1832,  in  which 
he  said : 

"  If  the  views  presented  be  correct,  it  follows  that  on  the  interposition  of  a 
State  in  favor  of  the  reserved  rights,  it  would  be  the  duty  of  the  General  Govern 
ment  to  abandon  the  contested  power,  or  to  apply  to  the  States  themselves,  the 
source  of  all  political  authority,  for  the  power,  in  one  of  the  two  modes  prescribed 
by  the  Constitution.  If  the  case  be  a  simple  one,  embracing  a  single  power,  and 
that  in  its  nature  easily  adjusted,  the  more  ready  and  appropriate  mode  would  be 
an  amendment  in  the  ordinary  form,  on  a  proposition  of  two-thirds  of  both  houses 
of  Congress,  to  be  ratified  by  three-fourths  of  the  States :  but,  on  the  contrary, 
should  the  derangement  of  the  system  be  great,  embracing  many  points  difficult 
to  adjust,  the  States  ought  to  be  convened  in  a  general  convention,  the  most 
august  of  all  assemblies,  representing  the  united  sovereignty  of  the  confederated 
States,  and  having  power  and  authority  to  correct  every  error,  and  to  repair  every 
dilapidation  or  injury,  whether  caused  by  time  or  accident,  or  the  conflicting 
movements  of  the  bodies,  which  compose  the  system. 

"  With  institutions  every  way  so  fortunate,  possessed  of  means  so  well  calcu 
lated  to  prevent  disorders,  and  so  admirable  to  correct  them,  when  they  cannot 
be  prevented,  he,  who  would  prescribe  for  our  political  disease,  disunion  on  the 
one  side,  or  coercion  of  a  State  in  the  assertion  of  its  rights  on  the  other,  would 
deserve  and  will  receive  the  execrations  of  this  and  all  future  generations" 


xxxviii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

with  contempt,  as  being  either  paid  agents  of  Great  Britain 
or  crazy  fanatics. 

But  here  we  have  an  illustration  of  the  truth  of  M. 
Guizot's  remark  that  some  portions  of  history  are  without 
the  control  of  human  judgment  and  will.  Mr.  Calhoun 
intended  to  arrest  the  Abolition  agitation  by  appealing  to  the 
justice  and  reason  of  that  portion,  who  were  actuated  by  an 
honest  zealotry,  hoping  thereby  to  withdraw  them  from  the 
support  of  the  paid  emissaries  of  the  British  East-India  cotton 
and  sugar  monopoly.  His  speech,  however,  had  a  directly 
contrary  effect.  By  it  he  drew  attention  to  the  republicaniz- 
ing,  levelling,  democratizing  influences  of  negro  slavery,  in 
its  social  and  political  effects  upon  the  whites.  By  it  he 
called  attention  to  the  peculiar  influence  of  negro  slavery  in 
its  bearing  on  the  irrepressible  conflict  between  capital  and 
labor.  By  it,  and  by  the  cotemporary  publication  of  M.  de 
Cassagnac's  book,  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Chase  were  brought 
to  understand  why  the  influence  of  the  South  was  always 
exerted,  in  the  legislation  of  the  General  Government,  to 
keep  up  wages,  and  keep  down  the  cost  of  living  —  in  favor  of 
light  taxes,  high  wages, ,  cheap  living,  and  an  economical 
administration  of  the  Government.  From  Mr.  Calhoun's 
speech  and  De  Cassagnac's  book  the  advocates  of  low 
wages  learned  that  Abolition  would  produce  pauperism  ;  that 
pauperism  would  increase  competition  in  the  struggle  for 
bread ;  that  increased  competition  would  reduce  wages,  with 
cheaper  food  and  coarser  clothing  and  fewer  of  the  neces 
saries  of  life  to  the  laborers.  The  result  was,  not  to  detach 
the  zealots  from  the  British  agents,  but  to  bring  the  mon 
archists,  the  aristocrats,  the  capitalists,  and  the  advocates  of 
low  wages  into  an  alliance  with  the  British  agents  and  the 
zealots ;  fusing  them  all,  together  with  some  other  elements, 
into  the  great  party,  that  elected  Mr.  Lincoln,  made  war  upon 
and  subjugated  the  South,  and  abolished  slavery,  that  "  free 
labor  might  be  made  cheaper  than  slave  labor;"  which 


TRANSLATOR  S  PREFACE.          XXXIX 

simply  means  a  reduction  of  the  wages  of  free  labor  below 
the  cost  of  feeding  and  clothing  a  negro  and  -taking  care  of 
him  in  sickness  and  the  infirmities  of  age. 

We  have  referred  to  other  elements  in  the  fusion,  that  pro 
duced  the  party  that  elected  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  two^  major 
causes  that  led  to  that  fusion  and  the  consequent  war,  were 
unquestionably  the  conflict  between'  despotic  andHree  gov 
ernment  ;  between  the  spirit  of  aristocracy  and  the  spirit  of 
democracy :  and  between  capital  and  labor ;  the  desire  to 
make  transitions  to  a  monarchical  and  aristocratic  govern 
ment,  and  the  desire  to  reduce  wages.  But  there  w^re_£itliex_ 
miqor  causes  that  deserve  a  passing  notice. 

And,  first  in  importance,  should  be  mentioned  foreign 
intrigue  to  foster  division  between  the  North  and  the  South, 
as  shown  in  President  Madison's  message  to  Congress,  with 
the  accompanying  correspondence  of  John  Henry,  the  British 
emissary  at  Boston,  to  which  the  reader  is  referred. 

In  a  letter  from  Boston,  2Oth  March,  1809,  to  Sir  James 
Craig,  Governor-General  of  British  America,  John  Henry  said : 

"  It  should,  therefore,  be  the  peculiar  care  of  Great  Britain 
to  foster  division  between  the  North  and  the  South  ;  and  by  suc 
ceeding  in  this,  she  may  carry  into  effect  her  own  projects  in 
Europe,  with  a  total  disregard  of  the  resentments  of  the 
democrats  on  this  continent." 

Unfortunately  too  many  of  the  politicians  of  the  United 
States  have  aided  to  make  this  British  policy  effective,  "  thus 
advancing  (to  use  Mr.  Guizot's  language)  in  the  execution 
of  a  plan,  which  they  had  not  conceived,  and  of  which  they 
were  not  even  aware." 

One  great  statesman,  unquestionably  the  ablest  of  his  party 
now  living,  Mr.  Seward,  conceived  the  idea  of  governing 
this  country  by  sectional  animosities,  as  a  permanent  system. 
In  a  speech  to  the  Maryland  Legislature  at  Annapolis,  shortly 
after  the  war,  he  suggested  that,  the  sectional  conflict  between 
the  North  and  South  having  been  terminated,  the  time  had 


xl  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

arrived  for  a  reorganization  of  parties,  on  the  basis  of  a  com 
bination  of  the  Eastern  and  Southern* Atlantic  States  against 
the  West. 

^C  Another  of  the  minor  causes  of  the  war  was  the  personal 
pique  of  disappointed  aspirants  for  public  office  or  patronage. 
Among  these  the  most  notable  were  John  Quincy  Adams, 
Martin  Van  Buren,  and  Francis  P.  Blair. 

Mr.  Adams  left  the  Federal  party  and  joined  the  Demo 
cratic  party,  assigning,  as  his  reason  for  so  doing,  that  the 
former  were  traitors  and  disunionists ;  but  when  the  Demo 
cratic  party  rejected  him  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency, 
he  renewed  his  affiliation  with  his  old  party,  and  thereby  gave 
color  to  the  charge,  made  by  some  of  the  old  Federalists,  that 
his  conversion  to  Democracy  was  pretended.  The  bitterness 
of  his  subsequent  hostility  to  the  Democracy  and  to  the  South, 
their  stronghold,  leaves  no  room  to  doubt  that  his  views  were 
colored  by  the  jaundice  of  disappointed  ambition. 

Mr.  Van  Buren,  having  been  deserted  by  the  Southern 
Democracy  in  his  second  race  for  the  Presidency,  took  his 
revenge  by  the  Free-soil  Buffalo  platform,  and  thereby  gave 
an  impulse  to  the  fusion,  which  finally  resulted  in  the  election 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  war. 

Francis  P.  Blair  had  grown  rich  at  Washington,  as  the  edi 
tor  of  the  Democratic  newspaper,  and  by  the  public  printing. 
Mr.  Thomas  Ritchie  had  grown  old  as  a  Democratic  editor  at 
Richmond,  and  was  still  poor.  On  the  election  of  Mr.  Polk, 
the  Virginia  delegation  in  Congress,  wishing  to  provide  for 
Mr.  Ritchie,  urged  that  Mr.  Blair  had  enjoyed  the  public 
patronage  long  enough,  and  ought  to  make  room  for  Mr. 
Ritchie.  Mr.  Polk  admitted  the  force  of  the  demand,  and 
required  Mr.  Blair  to  sell  out  the  Globe  to  Mr.  Ritchie  and 
General  Armstrong  of  Nashville,  who  changed  its  name  to 
the  Union.  Mr.  Blair  yielded  to  superior  force  ;  but  held  the 
South  responsible  for  it.  He  took  his  revenge  by  joining  in 
the  fusion  that  elected  Mr.  Lincoln  and  brought  on  the  war ; 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  xli 

aided  greatly  to  break  down  the  Democratic  party ;  and  only 
forgave  and  returned  to  his  first  love,  when  his  revenge  was 
full  by  the  surrender  to  superior  force  at  Appomattox  Court 
House.(#) 

^C  Another  of  the  minor  causes  that  led  to  the  war  was  the 
Pacific  Railroad.  That  portion  of  the  Democracy,  who  sup 
ported  Breckinridge,  were  opposed  to  giving  to  a  few  indi 
viduals  the  enormous  grants  sought  to  be  obtained  from  Con 
gress  in  aid  of  that  road,  and  had  defeated  the  bill  known  as 
the  Curtis  Bill.  Mr.  Douglas  himself,  probably  —  certainly, 
Governor  Herschel  V.  Johnson  —  and  very  many  of  those, 
who  voted  for  them,  were  not  aware  of  the  plan,  the  execu 
tion  of  which  was  to  be  advanced  by  their  nomination  ;  but 
it  was  brought  about  by  a  ring  of  those,  who  expected  to  be 
the  beneficiaries  of  some  such  Pacific  Railroad  Bill  as  that  of 
Mr.  Curtis ;  —  to  defeat  Breckinridge,  who  would  oppose  it, 
and  elect  either  Douglas  or  Lincoln,  both  of  whom  were 
pledged  to  its  support.  But,  as  it  is  my  purpose  to  give  a  full 
history  of  the  Pacific  Railroad  in  another  publication,  I  refer 
now  to  Duff  Green's  Facts  and  Suggestions,  chap,  xxvi.,  p.  215, 
for  further  information  on  this  point. 

In  this  connection,  however,  there  was  another  remote,  but 
very  potent,  cause  of  the  war,  that  ought  not  to  be  passed 
unmentioned :  fthe  cession  by  the  State  of  Virginia  tot  the 
United  States  of  her  great  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio 
River.  Mr.  Calhoun  doubtless  had  it  in  mind,  when  claim 
ing  for  the  South,  among  the  other  high  qualities  that  adorn 
our  nature,  disinterestedness.  Mr.  Webster,  in  his  speech  in 
the  Senate,  March  7,  1850,  said  of  it : 

"  And  a  most  magnificent  act  it  was.  I  never  reflect  upon 
it  without  a  disposition  to  do  honor  and  justice ;  — and  justice 
would  be  the  highest  honor ; — to  Virginia,  for  the  cession  of  her 
Northwestern  territory.  I  will  say,  sir,  it  is  one  of  her  fairest 
claims  to  the  respect  and  gratitude  of  the  United  States,  and 

(a)  See  note  (a)  to  page  xliii. 


xlii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

that,  perhaps,  it  is  only  second  to  that  other  claim  that 
attaches  to  her ;  that,  from  her  counsels,  and  from  the  intel 
ligence  and  patriotism  of  her  leading  statesmen,  proceeded 
the  first  idea  put  into  practice  of  the  formation  of  a  general 
Constitution  for  the  United  States.  ...  I  have  said  that  I  honoi 
Virginia  for  her  cession  of  this  territory.  There  have  been 
received  into  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States  eighty  mil 
lions  of  dollars,  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands 
ceded  by  her.  If  the  residue  should  be  sold  at  the  same 
rate,  the  whole  aggregate  will  exceed  two  hundred  millions 
of  dollars." 

In  the  light  of  more  recent  events,  the  historian  may  lose 
sight  of  the  disinterestedness  and  magnificence,  in  the  prodi 
gality,  of  the  gift ;  for  those,  to  whom  she  gave  it,  turned 
upon  and  rent  her  in  twain.  Nay,  more ;  while  they  heaped 
honors  on  those,  whose  boast  was  that  they  desolated  the 
fair  fields  of  Virginia,  until  a  crow  flying  over  them  had  to 
44  carry  his  rations  with  him,"  they  sought  to  realize  Mr.  Cal- 
houn's  prophecy  by  putting  the  negro  slaves,  as  political  mas 
ters,  over  the  sons  of  those,  whose  intelligence  and  patriotism 
called  forth  these  expressions  of  respect  and  gratitude  from 
Mr.  Webster. 

I  remember  to  have  seen,  shortly  after  the  war,  the  idea 
advanced  in  a  New  York  paper  (I  think  the  Journal  of  Com 
merce)  that  the  South  must  thank  her  own  statesmen  and 
leaders  for  her  defeat ;  because  it  was  wholly  due  to  that  sen 
timent  of  love  for  the  Union,  which  Southern  statesmen  had 
striven  so  hard  to  arouse,  and  which  Northern  leaders  had 
striven  with  as  much  earnestness  to  suppress. 

The  proofs  of  this  truth  are  multitudinous,  but  space  admits 
only  the  following  extracts  from  the  resolutions  adopted  at  a 
convention  of  the  (so-called)  Republican  party  of  Massachu 
setts,  at  Worcester,  not  long  previous  to  the  war : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  necessity  for  disunion  is  written  in  the 
whole  existing  character  and  conditions  of  the  two  sections 
of  the  country  —  in  their  social  organization,  education,  habits, 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  xliii 

and  laws  —  in  the  dangers  of  our  white  citizens  in  Kansas, 
and  of  our  colored  ones  in  Boston  —  in  the  wounds  of  Charles 
Sumner  and  the  laurels  of  his  assailant  —  and  no  Govern 
ment  on  earth  was  ever  strong  enough  to  hold  together  such 
opposing  forces. 

"  Resolved,  That  this  movement  does  not  seek  merely  dis 
union,  but  the  more  perfect  union  of  the  free  States  by  the  ex 
pulsion  of  the  slave  States  from  the  Confederation,  in  which 
they  have  ever  been  an  element  of  discord,  danger,  and  disgrace. 

"  Resolved,  That  henceforward,  instead  of  regarding  it  as 
an  objection  to  any  system  of  policy,  that  it  will  lead  to  the 
separation  of  the  States,  we  will  proclaim  that  to  be  the 
highest  of  all  recommendations  and  the  grateful  proof  of 
statesmanship  ;  and  will  support,  politically  or  otherwise,  such 
men  and  measures  as  appear  to  tend  most  to  this  result. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  sooner  the  separation  takes  place  the 
more  peaceful  it  will  be ;  but  that  peace  or  war  is  a  secondary 
consideration  in  view  of  our  present  perils.  Slavery  must  be 
conquered,  '  peaceably  if  we  can,  forcibly  if  we  must.'  "  (a) 

(a]  For  twenty  years,  from  the  time  that  Mr.  Polk  required  him  to  give  place  to 
Messrs.  Ritchie  and  Armstrong,  in  1845,  until  Columbia  was  burned  and  Rich 
mond  evacuated,  in  1865,  Mr.  Francis  P.  Blair  more  or  less  openly  co-operated 
politically  with  the  men,  who  passed  these  resolutions.  In  a  letter  addressed,  in 
1855?  to  Daniel  R.  Goodloe  and  Lewis  Clephane,  Corresponding  Committee  of 
the  Republican  Association  of  Washington  City,  he  assigned  the  reasons  of  his 
hostility  to  the  Democratic  party  and  to  the  South,  as  follows : 

"  The  cause,  which  your  organization  is  intended  to  promote,  may  well  draw 
to  its  support  men  of  all  parties.  Differences  on  questions  of  policy,  on  constitu 
tional  construction,  of  modes  of  administration,  may  well  be  merged  to  unite  men, 
who  believe  that  nothing  but  concert  of  action  on  the  part  of  those,  who  would  ar 
rest  the  spread  of  slavery,  can  resist  the  power  of  the  combination  now  embodied 
to  make  it  embrace  the  continent  from  ocean  to  ocean." 

It  is  impossible  for  any  one,  who  knows  Mr.  Blair,  to  believe  that  he  believed 
what  he  here  assigns  as  the  reason  of  his  combination  with  the  men,  who  passed 
these  resolutions.  He  was  too  well  informed,  knew  too  much  of  geography, 
understood  too  well  the  climatic  influences,  which  necessarily  confined  negro 
slavery  to  the  Southern  States,  where  alone  it  could  be  made  profitable,  to  believe 
any  such  thing.  But  as  the  close  of  a  lady's  letter  is  said  to  open  the  window 
of  her  heart,  so  the  close  of  Mr.  Blair's  letter  opens  the  window  of  his.  He  said : 

"  Incumbents  and  expectants  of  office  and  dignities  claim  a  sort  of  patent-right 


xliv  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

Here  we  have  disunion  avowed  in  Massachusetts,  for  the 
purpose  of  getting  rid  of  the  social* and  political  influences 
of  negro  slavery.  I  have  already  shown  that  its  social  in 
fluence  was  to  make  the  well-behaved  poor  white  man  the 
equal  of  his  rich  neighbor,  and  its  political  influence  was  ex 
erted  to  secure  light  taxes,  fair  wages,  and  cheap  living. 
Some  of  the  party,  like  Mr.  Greeley,  were  willing  to  "  let  the 
Union  slide,"  if  thereby  they  could  be  left  free  in  the  North 
and  East  to  enjoy  the  distinctions  between  poor  and  rich,  re 
duce  wages,  and  tax  labor  and  its  products  for  the  benefit  of 
an  aristocracy.  But  when  the  Union  sentiment,  created  by 
Southern  statesmen,  showed  itself,  then  the  men,  who  passed 
these  resolutions,  were  the  loudest  in  crying  "  rebel,"  and 
in  denouncing  those,  who  took  them  at  their  word  and  pro 
posed  to  separate  peaceably.  Then  the  monarchists,  aristo 
crats,  and  advocates  of  low  wages,  previously  avowed  dis- 
unionists,  endeavored  to  make,  and  did  make,  the  "  simple- 
hearted  citizens,"  who  loved  the  Union,  believe  that  the 
South  had  begun  the  war.  This  was  not  true  :  for  the  first  act 
of  war  was  the  military  movement  of  Captain,  now  General, 
Robert  Anderson,  in  taking  possession  of  Fort  Sumter ;  unless, 
perhaps,  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say,  that  the  first  act  of 
war  was  done  by  the  men,  who  passed  at  Worcester  the  reso 
lutions  above  quoted,  when  they  sent  John  Brown  and  his  band 
to  Harper's  Ferry,  to  incite  a  servile  insurrection  in  Virginia. 

The  dominant  party  of  Massachusetts  demanded  disunion, 
"  peacefully  if  they  could,  forcibly  if  they  must."  The 
South,  in  answer  to  this  demand,  offered  to  withdraw  peace- 

in  the  machine  of  Government,  to  create  a  Democracy  adapted  to  their  purposes. 
Their  innovations  in  the  machinery  are  contrivances  to  renew  their  privileges  for 
new  terms." 

Mr.  Blair  had  long  been'  the  incumbent  of  the  very  lucrative  office  of  public 
printer,  and  was  forced  to  give  way  for  Mr.  Ritchie  and  General  Armstrong,  at 
the  instance  of  the  Virginia  delegation.  His  long  "  incumbency  "  made  him  feel 
that  he  had  "  a  sort  of  patent-right "  in  the  profits  of  that  office,  and  that  his  re- 
moval  was  an  "innovation"  in  the  machinery  contrived  by  the  Democratic  party 
and  the  South. 


PREFACE.  Xlv 

fully;  tendered  the  olive-branch;  sent  commissioners  to 
Washington  to  arrange  the  terms  of  peaceful  separation. 
vSecession  was  resorted  to  as  a  peaceful  measure,  to  satisfy  the 
dominant  party  at  the  North,  who  had  demanded  the  "  ex 
pulsion"  of  the  South  from  the  confederation.  Some,  as  I 
have  said,  cared  only  to  get  rid  of  negro  slavery ;  so  that  the 
North,  relieved  from  its  democratic  tendencies,  might  more 
readily  make  transitions  to  a  monarchical  and  aristocratic 
form  of  government,  with  high  taxes,  low  wages,  and  large 
Government  expenditures.  ^Another  class  saw,  in  the  larger 
expenditures  of  a  war,  the  chance  of  making  fortunes  by  con 
tracting  for  army  supplies ;  and  their  purpose  to  provoke  a 
war  was  disclosed  by  the  remark  about  "  blood-letting,"  made 
by  Senator  Chandler,  whose  display  of  gorgeous  liveries  and 
other  insignia  of  pretensions  to  nobility,  on  his  tour  through 
Europe  sjnce  the  war,  in  some  measure  compensated  news 
paper  men  for  the  dearth  of  excitements  when  the  war  was 
over.  But  there  was^another  class  of  men  at  the  North, 
those,  whom  M.  Guizot  calls  the  "  simple-hearted  citizens," 
whom  Southern  statesmen  had  taught  to  love  the  Union,  and 
who,  full  of  courage  and  virtue,  though  little  mindful  of  po 
litical  affairs  till  something  startling  happens  to  arrest  their 
attention,  rose  up  to  declare  that  the  Union  should  be  pre 
served.  The  South  was  willing  —  anxious  —  to  remain  in, 
and  even  after  secession  to  return  to,  the  Union,  if  permitted 
to  do  so  with  their  rights  inviolate  under  the  Constitution. 
In  December,  1860,  President  Buchanan  despatched  to  Mr. 
Lincoln  a  gentleman,  (a)  a  connection  by  marriage  of  the  latter, 
to  invite  him  to  come  to  Washington  at  once;  with  assurances 
that  he  would  be  received  as  a  guest  at  the  White  House, 
with  all  the  honors  due  to  him  as  President  elect ;  and  that 

(a]  This  was  my  father,  General  Duff  Green.  Mr.  Buchanan  selected  him  to  be 
the  bearer  of  his  invitation  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  supposing  that  through  the  marriage 
connection  he  would  have  more  influence  with  Mr.  Lincoln  than  almost  any 
other  messenger,  who  could  have  been  selected.  Ninian  Edwards,  of  Springfield, 
Illinois,  was  my  mother's  nephew,  and  he  and  Mr.  Lincoln  had  married  sisters. 


xlvi        TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

by  uniting  their  influence,  they  could  yet  satisfy  the  South 
that  they  could  remain  in,  or  return  to  the  union,  with  safety 
to  their  rights,  and  honor  to  their  character ;  that  thus  the 
farther  progress  of  secession  could  be  arrested,  and  the  States, 
that  had  already  acted,  be  brought  back.  Mr.  Lincoln  declined 
to  accept  Mr.  Buchanan's  invitation  without  the  approval  of  Mr. 
Ben  Wade,  of  Ohio,  and  some  others,  who  would  not  consent 
to  it ;  and  the  result  was  that  the  blood-letting  and  contract 
ing  portion  of  the  aristocratic  party  carried  their  point,  and 
succeeded  in  provoking  the  war. 

y  A  great  effort  was  subsequently  made  to  produce  the  im- 
'pression  at  the  North  that  the  war  was  "  the  slaveholders' 
rebellion."  Nothing  could  be  farther  from  the  truth.  *The 
slaveholders,  with  rare  exceptions,  were  averse  to  war,  and 
opposed  to  secession,  lest  it  might  lead  to  war.  Only  a  few, 
very  few,  slaveholders,  (who  were  misled  into  believing  the 
Worcester  declaration  that  the  sooner  the  separation  took 
place,  the  more  peaceful  it  would  be,)  favored  the  movement. 
Let  the  candid  reader  bear  in  mind  that  property-holders  are 
proverbially  timid  and  averse  to  all  political  movements  cal 
culated  to  endanger  property ;  and  that  the  slaveholders  had 
multiplied  reasons  for  caution,  in  the  peculiar  nature  of  their 
property,  which  had  legs  and  a  will  of  its  own  to  take  itself 
off. 

It  is  generally,  but  erroneously,  believed  at  the  North  that 
Yancey,  Rhett,  Toombs,  Benjamin,  and  some  others,  were  the 
chief  agents  in  bringing  about  secession.  Their  influence, 
however,  was  small,  compared  to  that  of  Governor  Joseph  E. 
Brown,  of  Georgia;  and  for  the  reason  that  their  arguments;  — 
(such,  for  instance,  as  the  offer  to  "  drink  all  the  blood  that 
was  spilled,"  attributed, truly  or  falsely,  to  Mr. Toombs;) — were 
intended  to  prove  that  secession  would  be  peaceable,  and  were 
addressed  to  the  slaveholders,  who  were  in  a  minority  of  one 
to  fifteen ;  while  Governor  Brown  addressed  himself  to  the 
non-slaveholders,  who  were  a  vast  majority,  as  the  census  of 


TRANSLATOR S    PREFACE. 


xlvii 


1860  will  show,  (a)  Governor  Brown  was  born  in  South  Car 
olina,  a  self-made  man,  sprung  from  the  non-slaveholding 
class  of  poor  whites ;  and  his  influence  with  that  class,  who 
were  proud  of  his  talents  and  success,  was  not  much  less  in 
South  Carolina  than  in  Georgia. 

While  Governor  of  Georgia  before  the  war,  he  issued  sev 
eral  papers  addressed  to  the  non-slaveholders,  advocating 
secession  with  great  adroitness  and  ability.  His  argument 
was  in  substance  as  follows : 

That  the  (so-called)  Republican  party  was  coming  into 
power,  pledged  and  determined  to  abolish  slavery,  and  to 
make  the  negro  the  equal  of  the  poor  white  man. 

That,  inasmuch  as  slaves  were  property,  and  private  pro 
perty  could  not  be  taken  without  just  compensation,  the  first 
result  would  be  to  tax  the  non-slaveholding  mechanics,  small 
farmers,  croppers,  and  others  of  their  class,  to  pay  for  the 
slaves. 

That  another  result  would  be  to  reduce  wages  by  the  com 
petition  of  the  freed  negro,  who  would  make  up  by  petty  lar 
ceny  for  lower  wages ;  that  this  would  fall  upon  the  laboring 
whites ;  because  the  slave-owners  also  owned  the  lands  and 
the  bank  and  railroad  stocks,  and  could  still  provide  for  their 

(a)  The  vast  preponderance  of  the  non-slaveholders  appears  by  the  following 
tabular  statement,  taken  from  the  census  of  1860.  (See  volume  of  Population, 
pp.  592  and  593,  and  volume  of  Agriculture,  pp.  223  to  245.) 


Slaveholders. 

White  popula 
tion. 

Ratio  of  slave 
holders  to  white 
population. 

•3-2,7-10 

C26  271 

in  15 

11,481 

324,14.3 

"  28 

Florida  

C  i  C.2 

77  747 

TC 

Georgia  

41  084. 

CQI    C  CQ 

14 

Louisiana  

22,O33 

3C.7  4C6 

16 

Mississippi  

•3,0,043 

3  c  -j  ,800 

1  1 

North  Carolina  .  . 

•3.4.  6t;8 

62Q  Q42 

18 

South  Carolina  

26  701 

291    ^OO 

'  ii 

Tennessee  

•3,6,84.4. 

826  722 

'    22 

Texas  

21  878 

4°o  891 

'    2O 

Virginia  

C?  128 

I  O47  24Q 

'    10 

xlviii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

children  without  labor ;  while  the  non-slaveholders  would  be 
further  impoverished  by  taxation  to  "pay  for  the  slaves ;  and 
that  it  would  be  they  —  the  non-slaveholders  and  their  chil 
dren—who  alone  would  have  to  compete  with  the  negroes 
for  employment. 

That  another  result  would  be  to  degrade  their  social  posi 
tion  ;  because  the  freed  negroes  would  not  attempt  to  intrude 
into  the  well-furnished  drawing-rooms  of  their  late  masters, 
but  would  force  their  way  to  the  humble  firesides  of  the  poor 
mechanic  and  laborer,  and  insult  them  by  demanding  their 
daughters  in  marriage,  (a) 

By  such  arguments  as  these  Governor  Brown  "  fired  the 
hearts"  of  the  vast  non-slaveholding  majority,  and  by  their 
votes  swept  the  reluctant  slaveholders  into  secession.  When 
at  a  later  period  it  was  proposed  by  General  Lee  and  others 
to  put  negroes  into  the  army,  it  was  the  non-slaveholders, 
who  most  bitterly  opposed  it;  because  they  shrank  from  a 
contact,  which  they  feared  would  bring  them  down  to  a  level 
with  the  negroes. 

The  war  was  not  a  slaveholders'  rebellion.  Notwithstand 
ing  the  declaration  passed  by  Congress,  at  the  instance  of  the 
late  President  Johnson,  that  the  only  object  of  the  war  was 
to  preserve  the  Union  —  though  very  few  on  either  side  con 
ceived,  or  were  even  aware  of,  the  plan,  the  execution  of  which 
they  were  advancing  —  it  was  fought  on  the  one  side  —  by 
those,  who  controlled  the  Government,  and  in  whose  minds 
the  design  of  the  vast  machine  was  centred, —  in  the  interest 
of  monarchism  and  of  the  capital,  that  employs  free  labor;  to 
destroy  negro  slavery;  because  its  tendencies  were  anti-mon- 

(a)  It  is  due  to  Governor  Brown  to  add  that,  as  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Georgia,  since  the  war,  he  has  sought  to  shield  the  poor  whites  of  that 
State  from  one  degradation,  by  the  fear  of  which  he  sought  to  "  fire  their  hearts," 
when  advocating  secession,  by  deciding  that  the  intermarriage  of  whites  and  ne 
groes  is  prohibited.  (See  his  opinion  in  the  case  of  Charlotte  Scott,  plaintiff,  vs. 
The  State  of  Georgia,  which  those,  who  have  not  access  to  the  Georgia  Reports, 
will  find  in  McPherson's  Handbook  of  Politics  for  1870,  p.  474.) 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  xlix 

archical,  and  its  influence  exerted  in  legislation  to  maintain 
the  price  of  labor  and  cheapen  the  cost  of  living.  On  the 
other  side,  it  was  fought  by  the  Southern  non-slaveholders  to 
avert  pauperization  by  taxation,  reduction  of  wages,  and  social 
debasement. 

The  great  majority  of  the  brave  men,  who  did  the  hard 
fighting  of  the  war,  fought  and  bled  and  died,  to  keep  the 
Southern  States  in  the  Union  ;  yet  their  "judgment  and  will" 
were  subordinated  to  the  control  of  the  men,  who,  in  the 
Worcester  resolutions,  declared  their  purpose  to  be  "  the  ex 
pulsion  of  the  Southern  States  from  the  confederation." 

Many  conscientious  men  thought  they  were  fighting  to 
secure  justice  and  liberty  for  the  negroes;  yet  their  "judg 
ment  and  will"  were  subordinated  to  the  control  of  men,  who 
seized  the  first  moment  of  power  to  oppress  the  negroes,  by 
an  unjust  and  unconstitutional  tax  upon  the  product  of  negro 
labor,  cotton,  while  seeking  to  use  the  negroes  as  voting- 
machines,  to  oppress  free  white  labor  at  the  North  by  similar 
unjust  and  pauperizing  taxation. 

Mr.  Attorney-General  Akerman,  in  his  speech  in  Repre 
sentatives'  Hall,  Atlanta,  Georgia,  1st  September,  1870,  sought 
to  impress  upon  Southern  capital  the  fact,  that  emancipation 
was  a  decree  of  divorce  of  its  interests  from  those  of  labor. 

He,  or  whoever  prepared  his  speech  for  him,  was  aware, 
however,  that  this  was  a  "  serious  topic."  He  therefore  en 
deavored  in  that  speech  to  ride  on  both  sides  of  the  "  serious 
topic,"  by  adding  that,  "  looking  at  the  white  population  alone, 
the  cry  of  a  conflict  between  labor  and  capital  has  generally 
been  the  cry  of  the  demagogue,  for  the  reason  that  capital 
has  seldom  been  organized  against  labor ;  and  labor  has  sel 
dom,  except  in  the  small  way  of  trades'  unions,  been  organ 
ized  against  capital." 

But  what  are  the  historical  facts  ? 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  a  late  report  of  the  Mas 
sachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  : 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 
"  BOSTON  AND  THE  WORKING- WOMEN  —  A  PITIABLE  PICTURE. 

Extract  from  the  last  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics. 

"In  Boston,  a  large  proportion  are  workers  in  shops.  We 
will  take  one  trade,  that  of  tailoresses  and  cloakmakers :  they 
go  to  their  work  at  seven,  almost  always  without  any  warm 
breakfast ;  they  work  till  ten,  and  then  perhaps  have  a  few 
minutes'  rest,  when  the  little  teapot  is  set  on  the  range  and  a 
lunch  of  dry  food  eaten;  but  in  most  of  the  establishments 
the  girls  do  not  stop  work  till  twelve,  when,  in  all,  they  are 
allowed  from  thirty  to  sixty  minutes  for  dinner.  Work  ends 
at  five  P.  M.,  and  many  of  the  girls  take  work  home  with 
them,  work  not  ceasing  till  midnight.  Room-rent  costs  not 
less  than  two  dollars  to  three  dollars  each,  with  often  two  or 
more  double  beds  in  a  room.  In  good  shops  and  with  brisk 
work  they  can  earn  a  dollar  a  day.  Some  machine  girls  re 
ceive  more,  but  the  work  is  very  wearing,  and  induces  spinal 
disease.  One  of  our  largest  as  well  as  kindest  custom-work 
merchant  tailors  testified  to  a  committee  of  inquiry,  that  few 
'machine  girls'  could  work  over  two  years  before  becoming 
so  broken  down  that  they  were  ever  after  unfit  for  labor.  In 
slopwork  shops,  girls  can  seldom  earn  more  than  their  room- 
rent  except  by  overwork.  In  slack  times  their  suffering  is 
extreme,  girls  having  been  known  to  work  weeks  with  only 
water  and  bread  or  crackers  for  food,  and  fortunate  if  able  to 
procure  an  ounce  of  tea.  In  dull  times  many  have  lived  for 
weeks  on  five  cents'  worth  each  of  stale  bread  per  week  while 
seeking  work.  The  lodging-house  keepers  charge  working- 
women  higher  rates  than  men,  and  many  refuse  to  have  them 
in  their  houses  at  any  price.  Hence  they  are  often  obliged 
to  live  and  sleep  in  localities,  where  they  would  be  ashamed 
to  let  any  one  know  they  ever  went.  Yet  few  ever  break 
down  morally  or  become  untidy  in  dress.  Those  women,  who 
take  work  home  from  the  slopshops,  provident,  aid,  and  other 
charitable  societies,  receive  as  follows :  Shirts,  4  cents  to  7 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  li 

cents;  fine-bosomed  shirts,  10  cents  to  25  cents;  satin  vests, 
20  cents;  pants,  15  cents,  20  cents,  and  37  cents;  coats,  50 
cents ;  French  calico  suits,  lined  sacks,  faced  skirt,  20  cents ; 
long  white  night-dresses,  50  cents.  Of  the  30,000  women  in 
and  about  Boston,  who  live  by  sewing,  very  few  earn  over 
$12  a  week  ;  the  average  wages  do  not  exceed  $2.75.  Many 
poor  women  take  this  slop  and  charity  work  in  quantities, 
and  give  it  to  others  to  do,  still  further  lessening  the  receipts 
of  the  actual  workers,  who  are  usually  women  with  small 
families  dependent  upon  their  labor  for  support.  Paper-box 
makers  average  about  $3  per  week. 

"  Factory  life  is  much  harder  on  women  than  it  was 
twenty-five  years  ago.  Instead  of  tending  two  looms,  as 
then,  she  is  required  to  tend  six ;  while  a  week's  work  now 
will  not  procure  as  much  comfort  as  when  she  only  tended 
one  loom.  Very  few  working-women  of  any  class  ever  have 
a  good  bed,  with  sufficient  bed-covering.  Their  wages  will 
not  allow  them  to  purchase  warm  flannel  undergarments  or 
serviceable  shoes,  water-proofs,  etc.  Few  are  ever  exempt 
from  diseases  caused  by  scanty  clothing,  insufficient  and  in- 
nutritious  food,  and  long-continued  labor  in  deleterious  con 
ditions.  The  constant  pressure  of  anxiety  breaks  down  many 
girls  physically,  and  too  often  morally,  before  they  reach  the 
prime  of  life.  All  avenues  of  employment  are  overcrowded." 

The  New  York  Times,  under  Mr.  Raymond's  management, 
was,  and  still  is,  one  of  the  ablest  exponents  of  the  doctrine 
that  "  free  labor  is  cheaper  than  slave  labor."  On  the  I4th 
July,  1868,  it  said  editorially: 

"The  New  Orleans  Commercial  Bulletin  says  that  the 
Southern  planters,  '  profiting  by  free  labor,  have  now  discov 
ered  that  more  money  can  be  made  out  of  a  freedman's  labor 
than  from  that  of  a  slave.'  We  are  glad  to  hear  it.  In  the 
old  days  of  slavery,  we  always  told  the  Southern  people  that 
this  was  the  case." 


Hi  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

On  the  2 1st  July,  1869,  the  New  York  Times  spoke  edito 
rially  of  the  great  Asiatic  slave-trader  ef  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury,  Koopmanschap,  as  follows 

"  It  was  only  a  few  weeks  ago  that  the  name  of  Koopman 
schap  was  unknown  to  fame.  Suddenly  it  has  emerged  from 
the  obscurity,  with  which  the  appellations  of  ordinary  mortals 
are  surrounded,  and  occupies  a  lofty  niche  within  the  nation's 
fame.  Everybody  is  asking  'Who  is  Koopmanschap?' 
Fortunately  he  has  arrived  in  the  city  just  in  time  to  answer 
for  himself  this  question,  as  propounded  to  him  by  our  re 
porter  yesterday." 

Now  why  does  this  advocate  of  cheap  labor  and  dear  living 
give  such  a  lofty  niche  in  the  nation's  fame  to  this  trader  in 
human  bones  and  flesh  and  rnuscle?  Is  there,  can  there  be, 
any  other  reason  than  because  this  new  organization  of  the 
labor  system  of  the  United  States  proposes  to  furnish  capital 
with  cheaper  labor,  giving  to  capital  all  the  advantages  of  the 
slave  system,  and  at  the  same  time  relieving  capital  from  the 
expense  and  burden  of  taking  care  of  labor  in  sickness  and 
the  infirmities  of  age  ?  Oh,  admirable,  money-making  phil 
anthropy! 

But  let  the  New  York  Times  speak  for  itself.  It  says  : 
"  It  is  the  importation  of  these  coolies  in  the  past,  and  the 
proposed  transportation  immediately  of  hundreds  of  thou 
sands  more,  to  supply  the  demand  for  labor  everywhere,  and 
in  every  industrial  department,  and  especially  to  cultivate  the 
neglected  plantations  of  the  South,  that  have  made  the  name 
of  Koopmanschap  famous  in  the  land. 

"...  The  woollen  factory  of  Lazar  freres,  in  San  Fran 
cisco,  employs  300  Chinamen,  who  make  splendid  hands,  al 
though  they  were  entirely  ignorant  of  the  business  when  first 
employed  by  that  firm.  This  was  two  years  ago,  when  the 
Irish  hands  refused  to  work  more  than  eight  hours  a  day. 
The  firm  immediately  discharged  them,  and  employed  the 
coolies,  paying  the  latter  for  ten  hours'  labor  a  day  only  $i 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  liii 

per  diem  on  an  average,  while  to  the  Irish  laborers  they  had 
paid  on  an  average  $3  per  diem,  or  from  $60  to  $100  per 
month.  .  .  . 

"  Mr.  Koopmanschap  says  that  he  does  not  bring  over 
Chinese  women.  They  are  sure  to  follow  wherever  the  men 
go.  The  Chinamen  will  import  them  for  themselves." 

The  Cincinnati  Commercial  is  another  noted  advocate  of 
these  politico-economical  ideas.  It  also  sings  paeans  to 
Koopmanschap,  and  revels  in  the  thought  of  a  coming  mil 
lennium  of  cheap  labor.  It  says : 

"  Weavers  of  cotton  and  silk  can  be  had  in  China  for  two 
or  three  dollars  a  month,  and  skilled  artisans  receive  from 
five  to  eight  dollars  for  that  period  of  time.  .  .  . 

"  Women  are  found  in  abundance  in  China  to  do  the  labor 
of  households  for  their  mere  bread  and  clothing.  Laborers 
can  be  got  in  the  tea  districts  of  China  for  six  or  seven  cents 
a  day.  .  .  . 

"  The  American  laborer  consumes  enough  meat,  tea,  and 
coffee,  two  or  three  times  a  day,  to  keep  a  Chinaman  for  a 
week.  The  price  of  meat,  as  is  well  known,  is  about  four  or 
five  times  that  of  bread.  .  .  . 

"The  subsistence  of  the  great  mass  of  the  Chinese  is 
extremely  simple.  The  great  staple,  of  which  it  consists,  is 
rice,  and  this,  mixed  with  a  little  bread,  a  few  vegetables,  a 
little  fruit,  and  a  little  meat,  (more  frequently  fish,)  constitutes 
the  whole  diet  of  millions.  Indeed,  the  small  consumption 
of  animal  food  in  China  is  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  country 
to  a  stranger.  The  flesh  of  beef  or  mutton  is  scarcely  ever 
tasted  except  by  the  rich,  and  no  Chinese  ever  use  either 
milk,  butter,  or  cheese." 

Such  is  the  Barmecide  feast  to  which  the  so-called  Repub 
licanism  of  1871  invites  the  laboring  and  productive  classes 
of  America. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  question  of  cheap  labor  and  cheap 
production,  which  are  the  great  problems  of  the  age,  has 


liv  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

been  so  well  treated  by  Ex-Governor  Horatio  Seymour,  in  a 
recent  address  to  a  mass  meeting  of  working-men  in  Utica, 
New  York,  that  I  here  insert  it  entire. 

SPEECH  OF  EX-GOVERNOR  SEYMOUR. 

At  a  mass  meeting  of  working-men  in  Utica,  New  York, 
Ex-Governor  Seymour  spoke  as  follows  : 

"At  the  last  six  annual  elections  in  this  State  the  Repub 
lican  leaders  have  asked  that  they  should  be  kept  in  power, 
because  they  claimed  they  had  saved  the  country,  and  we  are 
left  to  the  conclusion  that  they  saved  it  for  their  own  special 
benefit.  We  do  not  see  the  grounds  for  this  claim,  so  far  as 
the  war  is  concerned,  as  we  sent  our  full  share  of  men  to  the 
field.  The  city  of  New  York,  the  stronghold  of  the  De 
mocracy,  did  more  than  its  share  in  filling  the  ranks  of  our 
armies.  If  we  look  at  the  action  of  the  party  in  power,  the 
question  comes  up,  what  kind  of  salvation  have  they  given 
us  ?  Our  whole  people  are  grievously  burdened  by  taxation. 
Military  power  still  tramples  upon  the  judiciary  in  many 
parts  of  the  South,  and  even  threatens  the  sanctity  of  the 
ballot-box  at  the  North.  Great  armies  are  kept  up  upon  the 
pretext  that  they  are  needed  to  save  the  negroes  at  the  South, 
and  to  kill  the  Indians  at  the  West.  The  country  is  harassed 
by  Indian  and  African  problems.  It  is  now  also  perplexed 
with  the  Asiatic  question.  It  comes  up  like  a  black  cloud 
upon  our  Western  borders,  taking  unusual  forms  and  propor 
tions.  To  all,  who  have  studied  it,  it  causes  great  anxiety. 
Its  shadows  fall  upon  us,  and  we  cannot  get  rid  of  its  dangers 
by  shutting  our  eyes  to  its  evil  forebodings.  It  enters  into 
this  election,  for  we  are  about  to  choose  our  lawmakers,  who 
must  deal  with  it.  Some  months  ago  I  wrote  a  short  letter  in 
answer  to  an  invitation  from  a  body  of  working-men  to  speak 
to  them  upon  this  subject.  I  took  ground  not  only  against 
the  way,  in  which  the  Chinamen  come  to  our  country,  but  to 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  Iv 

their  coming  here  at  all.  That  letter  was  sharply  censured, 
but  it  was  not  written  without  thought  or  study.  As  the  sub 
ject  is  fairly  up  in  this  canvass,  I  will  speak  of  it  to-night. 
Heretofore,  except  at  the  time  when  the  people  of  New  York 
and  New  England  were  bringing  negroes  from  Africa  to  sell 
to  the  people  of  the  South,  immigration  has  always  brought 
us  people  kindred  to  ourselves  in  manners,  customs,  and 
religion.  Even  their  languages  had  much  in  common.  The 
literature  of  Europe,  translated  into  different  tongues,  was 
more  or  less  known  to  them  all.  They  had  the  same  habits 
of  thought,  and  were  used  to  the  same  form  of  civilization. 
Their  coming  gave  no  shock  to  our  institutions,  laws,  or 
habits.  They  rapidly  became  part  of  ourselves,  and  added 
to  the  general  wealth  and  prosperity.  Europe  was  not  so 
overcrowded  with  people  that  they  were  sent  to  us  in  great 
numbers,  or  more  rapidly  than  they  could  be  assimilated. 
We  therefore  welcomed  them  to  our  shores.  The  Chinese 
immigration  is  a  different  thing.  It  comes  from  a  land 
crowded  with  people  beyond  what  our  civilization  could  tol 
erate.  They  outnumber  us  ten  to  one.  It  brings  to  us  a 
people  who  are  in  conflict  with  all  our  methods  of  thought, 
with  all  our  ideas  of  morals,  and  with  all  our  conceptions  of 
government.  While  we  find  much  to  commend  in  their 
industry,  there  is  more  to  condemn,  in  their  cunning,  their 
cruelty,  and  in  that  stolidity  of  character,  which  makes  them 
unimpressible  by  any  influences  we  can  bring  to  bear  upon 
them.  They  will  always  be  an  undigested,  hurtful  thing  in 
our  political  system.  The  idea  prevails  that  they  are  a  docile, 
harmless  race ;  and  so  they  are  while  they  remain  a  few  indi 
viduals  scattered  through  the  community.  But  study  their 
characters  at  home,  and  you  will  find  thieving,  corruption, 
and  falsehood  in  the  interior  of  the  state,  piracy  upon  its 
coasts,  and  robbery  upon  its  inland  borders. 

"  They  are  hated  by  all  other  Asiatics.  While  some  urge  that 
we  should  welcome  them  here,  they  are  debating  the  ques- 


Ivi  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

tion  if  they  shall  go  on  with  the  massacre  of  Americans  and 
Europeans,  which  they  began  with  the  awful  slaughter  of  the 
men  and  women,  who  are  engaged  among  them,  as  mission 
aries,  in  works  of  charity  and  religion.  Unfortunately  for  our 
country,  our  difficulties  in  dealing  with  this  question  are  in 
creased  by  the  late  amendments  to  the  National  Constitution, 
which  have  stripped  the  States  of  rights  needed  for  their  good 
government.  Otherwise  this  question  could  have  been  left 
to  the  Pacific  States,  who  would  have  dealt  with  it  in  the 
light  of  their  own  experience.  But  the  Fifteenth  Amend 
ment  binds  California  and  Oregon  hand  and  foot,  and  lays 
them  prostrate  before  the  Chinaman,  who  strides  over  them, 
and  we  are  forced  to  confront  him  here.  It  is  urged  by  some 
that  Chinese  immigration  will  lower  the  wages  of  our  labor, 
cheapen  production,  and  add  to  the  national  wealth.  This  is 
not  true.  Cheap  labor  does  not  add  to  a  nation's  wealth, 
neither  does  it  cheapen  production,  as  I  will  show.  Look 
over  the  map  of  the  world,  and  you  will  find  universal  pov 
erty  where  labor  is  most  poorly  paid.  In  Africa,  you  can  buy 
a  man's  labor  for  life  for  a  string  of  beads,  but  they  are  too 
poor  to  get  the  string  of  beads.  In  Asia,  the  laborer  gets  a 
little  better  pay;  but  how  little  is  its  wealth,  and  how  small  is 
its  commerce,  compared  with  its  countless  millions  of  people! 
Men,  who  wear  scanty  cotton  clothing,  cannot  uphold  arts  or 
industry.  They  cannot  give  life  and  prosperity  to  the  work 
shop,  to  the  counting-house,  or  to  fleets  of  vessels  upon  the 
ocean.  If  you  compare  Asia  and  Africa  with  Europe,  you 
will  find  that,  while  the  laborers  of  England,  of  Germany,  of 
France,  and  other  countries  are  much  better  paid,  the  national 
wealth  is  greater,  and  that  they  are  sending  their  products  to 
the  very  regions  where  the  pay  of  labor  is  at  the  lowest  ebb. 
The  labor  of  Europe,  whose  wages  are  so  much  higher  than 
those  of  the  other  continents  I  have  named,  can  still  produce 
all  the  products  of  art  for  a  much  less  price,  and  can  and  does 
sell  them  to  those  countries,  where  labor  starves  for  want  of 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  lvi| 

pay.  But  we  must  turn  to  our  own  country  to  learn  how  true 
it  fs  that  labor  must  be  well  paid  to  give  wealth  and  pros 
perity  to  a  land.  If  the  laborers  and  mechanics  of  the  United 
States  were  put  upon  the  same  pay  given  to  the  Chinamen, 
we  should  have  universal  bankruptcy  throughout  the  bounds 
of  our  country.  Three-quarters  of  the  stores  of  this  city 
would  be  closed.  Why  is  it  that  a  town  with  10,000  people 
here  does  more  business  than  a  city  of  100,000  in  Asia  ?  It 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  our  mechanics  are  able  to  build  houses ; 
to  furnish  them  with  the  comforts  of  life  ;  to  clothe  them 
selves  and  their  families,  not  only  in  a  way  which  protects 
their  persons,  but  also  gratifies  their  tastes  ;  which  enables 
them  to  support  the  arts  and  industry  in  all  its  forms.  Why 
are  the  people  of  these  United  States  able  to  pay  a  percent 
age  of  taxation,  which  would  crush  any  other  nation  ?  It  is 
simply  because  the  wages  of  labor  here  enable  men  to  con 
sume  all  those  varied  articles,  which  pay  a  duty  to  Govern 
ment.  Go  where  you  will,  the  world  over,  and  you  will  find 
the  greatest  general  wealth,  the  greatest  prosperity,  and  the 
greatest  happiness,  where  you  find  the  greatest  wages  for 
labor.  Men  confound  cheap  labor  with  cheap  production. 
These  are  not  only  different,  but  at  times  they  are  opposite 
things.  Sometimes  cheap  labor  is  an  element  in  cheap  pro 
duction,  but  that  is  not  the  rule.  We  see  the  fact  to  be  that, 
where  labor  is  the  highest,  production  is  the  cheapest,  and 
sends  its  works  of  art  and  of  skill  all  over  the  world.  The 
reason  of  this  is,  cheap  production  is  the  result  of  intellect  as 
well  as  labor ;  of  mind  as  well  as  of  toil.  It  is  wrought  out 
by  those,  who  are  in  that  condition  of  comfort  and  respect 
ability,  that  their  minds  are  educated  and'  alert.  Starving 
labor  never  yet  invented  machinery  to  till  the  ground  and 
gather  in  its  crops ;  it  never  yet  worked  out  those  wonders  in 
mechanics,  which  have  borne  our  country  on  to  its  greatness. 
Men  can  cheapen  their  productions  and  add  to  their  earnings 
when  they  can  call  to  their  aid  science  and  learning,  but 
5 


Iviii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

these  two  cannot  live  where  labor  is  pinched  down  to  J:he 
point  of  starvation.  If  man  invents  a  "machine,  which  enables 
him  to  make  more,  he  can  yet  sell  for  less  and  grow  rich. 
But  force  him  to  sell  for  less  by  the  competition  of  the  China 
man,  which  does  not  increase  his  power  of  production,  and 
he  starves.  And  when  the  laborer  sinks,  the  whole  structure 
of  society,  of  which  he  is  the  basis,  sinks  with  him.  This 
may  be  laid  down  as  a  law  —  that  cheap  production  and  gen 
eral  prosperity  are  the  results  of  high  civilization  and  general 
intelligence ;  that  these  can  only  exist  among  a  people,  where 
the  great  mass  of  the  working  men  are  well  paid  and  placed 
in  the  condition  of  respectability,  where  their  minds  are  fed  as 
well  as  their  bodies.  But  it  is  said  there  is  no  danger  that 
the  Chinamen  will  come  to  this  country  in  such  numbers  as 
will  harm  our  working-men.  Is  this  true  ?  We  find  that  the 
character  and  condition  of  the  Chinese  is  such  that  they  can 
be  sent  for  as  readily  as  so  many  boxes  of  tea.  We  learn 
every  day  of  orders  that  are  sent  out  for  thousands  of  them 
for  special  purposes.  Orders  are  now  under  way  for  bands 
of  them  to  make  boots  and  shoes.  It  does  not  take  a  large 
number,  thrown  into  this  branch  of  business,  to  overstock  the 
demand  for  this  labor,  and  to  unsettle  the  wages  of  those,  who 
are  skilled  in  this  business.  Already  the  artisans  engaged  in 
this  trade  are  uneasy.  They  do  not  know  how  soon  that  skill, 
which  they  have  gained  in  it,  may  be  made  valueless  to  sup 
port  their  families  in  the  condition  they  have  heretofore  lived. 
The  men  who  make  clothes  or  hats,  or  other  classes  of  our 
mechanics,  may  be  treated  in  the  same  way.  Those,  who 
work  in  our  factories,  are  liable  to  be  driven  out  by  orders, 
which  are  even  now  on  their  way  to  Asia.  Navigation  on 
the  Pacific,  as  its  name  implies,  has  always  been  less  costly 
and  dangerous  than  that  of  the  stormy  Atlantic.  There  are 
now  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  Chinamen  in  our 
country.  An  equal  number,  brought  here  by  selfish  and  de 
signing  men,  may  be  so  placed  as  to  force  down  the  wages  of 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  lix 

working-  men.  The  mere  fact,  that  this  can  be  done,  destroys 
the  independence  and  clouds  the  hopes  of  the  body  of  our 
mechanics.  There  is  a  growing  belief  in  men's  minds  that 
the  mission  of  Mr.  Burlingame  was  contrived  by  a  class  of 
manufacturers  to  effect  this  very  object,  at  the  moment  they 
were  appealing  to  Congress  for  special  legislation  in  their 
own  behalf.  Short-sightedness  is  always  incident  to  selfish 
ness  and  greed.  Let  these  men  bear  in  mind  that,  when  they 
have  broken  down  the  body  of  the  laborers  of  this  country, 
they  will  have  destroyed  their  ability  to  be  the  consumers  of 
manufactured  products.  The  evils  of  underpaid  labor  will 
not  fall  upon  the  working-men  alone.  All  classes  must  suffer 
when  they  are  made  poor.  The  owners  of  real  estate,  the 
merchant,  the  manufacturer,  will  find  that  the  laws  of  trade 
and  the  rules  of  value  are  universal  and  unvarying.  They 
will  operate  in  Europe  or  America,  as  they  do  in  Asia  or 
Africa.  True  statesmanship  and  generous  wisdom  ever  look 
to  building  up  the  interests  of  labor.  Where  the  homes  of 
toil  are  happy,  and  where  prosperity  waits  upon  the  hand  of 
industry,  there  is  national  greatness,  wealth,  and  glory.  But 
we  are  asked,  What  can  we  do  to  avert  these  evils  ?  How 
can  we  hinder  the  landing  upon  our  shores  of  swarms  of 
Asiatics,  without  overturning  the  established  maxim  as  to  im 
migration  ?  We  need  no  change  of  our  policy  in  this  respect. 
We  put  the  Asiatic  and  the  European  upon  the  same  footing. 
Our  laws  have  never  allowed  any  nation  to  sench  here  a  hurt 
ful  or  a  dangerous  class  of  men.  When  in  some  instances 
they  have  shipped  paupers  to  our  shores,  we  have  sent  them 
back.  We  forbid  the  violators  of  laws,  men  who  endanger 
the  public  health  or  order,  to  land  here.  The  statutes  of  the 
different  States  and  of  the  nation  are  full  of  such  regulations. 
We  welcome  the  great  body  of  European  immigrants,  because 
it  is  for  our  advantage  to  have  them  here.  The  Chinaman 
has  no  better  rights  than  the  German,  the  Irishman,  the  Eng 
lishman,  or  the  Frenchman.  If  his  coming  here  is  hurtful  to 


Ix  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

the  good  order  of  society,  to  the  great  interests  of  industry, 
we  have  a  right  to  keep  him  away,  ff  there  is  danger  that 
they  will  pour  into  the  Pacific  States  in  such  numbers  as  to 
shape  their  customs  and  habits  by  Asiatic  rules,  then  they 
endanger  our  Union,  for  the  end  of  this  must  be  their  utter 
severance  from  the  rest  of  our  country.  The  Mormons 
are  not  so  much  in  conflict  with  our  ideas  of  morals  and 
civilization  as  are  the  Chinese.  Yet  no  one  would  tolerate 
the  idea  that  the  Mormons  should  gain  control  of  the  Pacific 
coast.  This  Government  is  even  now  adopting  sharp  meas 
ures  to  hold  them  in  check,  at  their  colony  in  the  midst  of 
the  great  deserts  of  the  West.  A  simple  law,  such  as  has 
been  adopted  with  regard  to  foreign  immigration,  will  settle 
this  whole  question.  Let  Congress  declare  that  no  more 
than  ten  Chinamen  shall  be  landed  from  one  vessel,  and  they 
will  close  to  a  safe  degree  those  floodgates,  which  are  now 
wide  open,  and  through  which  we  are  threatened  with  an  in 
vasion  from  Asia  as  hurtful  as  that,  which  once  desolated 
Europe  under  Genghis  Khan.  I  have  spoken  thus  plainly 
upon  this  subject,  because  I  believe  it  more  deeply  concerns 
the  welfare  of  the  American  people  than  any  topic  involved 
in  this  election.  I  have  no  censures  for  those  who  may  differ 
from  the  views  I  hold.  I  have  no  prejudices,  which  will  hin 
der  me  from  changing  those  views,  if  I  find  that  I  am  wrong. 
What  I  have  said  is  the  result  of  much  thought  and  careful 
study.  I  wish  that  those,  who  are  charged  with  the  conduct 
of  national  affairs,  or  that  their  supporters,  who  are  active  in 
this  canvass,  had  in  a  plain  and  open  way  stated  their  views 
with  regard  to  this  great  Asiatic  problem.  I  think  that,  by 
so  doing,  they  would  stand  in  a  better  light  before  the  country 
and  the  world,  than  by  efforts  to  keep  alive  sectional  hate 
and  partisan  malice." 

To  the  editorial  comments  of  the  New  York  Times  on  the 
fact  noticed  by  the  New  Orleans  Commercial  Bulletin,  it  is 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  Ixi 

only  necessary  to  add  one  single  example,  out  of  millions,  to 
illustrate  that  the  effect  of  emancipation  has  already  been  to 
reduce  wages,  and  to  diminish  the  share  of  the  products 
of  labor,  allotted  to  those,  by  whose  labor  they  were  pro 
duced.  A  negro  woman,  who  was  an  excellent  cook,  was,  by 
the  casualties  of  the  war,  separated  from  her  owners  in  1 864. 
In  January,  1870,  she  was  most  happy  to  get  back  to  them. 
She  told  them  she  had  been  doing  her  best  to  support  herself, 
but  had  not  been  able  to  get  more  than  her  food  and  forty 
dollars  a  year,  out  of  which  she  had  to  clothe  herself,  and 
pay  for  medicine  and  medical  attendance.  Before  the  war 
she  could  be  hired  readily  for  $125  to  $150  per  annum,  with 
food,  clothing,  medicines,  and  medical  attendance  in  addition. 

Yet  the  Republican  cry  is  still  for  cheaper  labor !  and 
Senator  Sprague  attended  the  Memphis  Commercial  Con 
vention  for  the  sole  purpose  of  impressing  on  the  mind  of 
Southern  capital  that,  having  been  divorced  by  emancipation 
from  labor,  it  should  now  unite  with  Northern  capital  in 
measures  to  cheapen  labor,  (a) 

In  this  divorce  case,  labor  is  the  feebler  party;  —  the  poor 
deserted  wife,  left  without  alimony,  and  with  a  brood  of 
hungry  children  crying  for  bread,  and  dependent  on  her  for 
support ! 

Emancipation  has  taken  from  her  that  "  natural  ally,"  which 
a  community  of  interests  secured  to  her  in  the  old  days  of 
negro  slavery,  as  expressed  in  Mr.  Jefferson's  aphorism, 
above  quoted.  Wages  no  longer,  at  the  South,  go  into,  but 
they  come  out  of,  the  pockets  of  capital.  The  cost  of  living, 
at  the  South,  no  longer  conies  out  of,  but  goes  into,  the 
pockets  of  capital. 

And  now  we  have  the  authoritative  declaration  of  the 
Attorney-General,  the  first  law-officer  of  the  Government,  that 
Mrs.  White  Labor  and  Mrs.  Black  Labor  are  two  lonely 
grass  widows. 

(tz)  See  Senator  Sprague's  speech  at  the  Memphis  Commercial  Convention. 


Ixii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

The  question  arises,  Where  can  they,  in  their  lonesome 
grass  -  widowhood,  turn  for  aid  and  comfort,  food,  and 
shelter  ? 

Shall  they  "go  to  Chicago"?  Alas,  they  are  already 
divorced  by  emancipation  !  They  would  be  glad  to  make  an 
honest  living,  as  hirelings,  if  they  could  get  wages  to  keep 
soul  and  body  together.  But  they  shrink  from  living  by 
beggary,  prostitution,  or  theft.  Then  there  is  no  use  in  their 
"going  to  Chicago." 

Shall  they  appeal  to  what  is  called  Republicanism  in  1871  ? 
Alas  !  with  the  old  rakes  of  that  set,  who  misled,  deceived,  and 
betrayed  them,  the  heyday  of  the  blood  is  over ;  their  hearts 
are  withered  and  callous  !  Besides,  they  brought  about  the 
divorce,  of  malice  prepense,  with  set  purpose  to  ruin  these  two 
poor  women ;  that  they  might  thereby  be  forced  into  one  of 
De  Cassagnac's  four  classes  of  the  proletariat,  viz.,  hirelings 
at  cheap  wages,  or  else  beggars,  prostitutes,  or  thieves ! 

Shall  they  appeal  to  the  younger  bloods  of  the  set  —  any 
of  the  "  smaller  fry,"  who  call  themselves  Republicans  ? 
Alas !  they  never  had  either  hearts  or  brains  ;  or,  if  they 
had,  there  was  not  phosphorus  enough  in  their  composition 
to  light  up  the  one,  or  warm  the  other !  Besides,  they  be 
long,  body  and  soul,  to  capital,  and  believe  that,  in  the  pro 
gress  of  civilization,  the  great  need  of  the  hour  \s  cheap  labor! 

Can  they  find  relief  in  what  the  Attorney-General  calls 
"  the  small  way  of  trades'  unions  "  ?  Alas,  alas,  alas !  our 
author  shows  that  all  history  proves  that  to  be  a  poor  and 
vain  reliance  !  Egotism,  selfishness,  appear  there,  as  else 
where.  I  attended  the  National  Labor  Convention  in  Balti 
more  in  1866,  as  a  spectator,  from  curiosity,  to  see  what  it 
was  composed  of,  and  what  were  its  objects.  I  was  at  the 
National  Labor  Convention  in  Chicago  in  1867,  as  a  delegate 
from  the  Pattern-makers'  Union  of  Baltimore.  I  had  not  much 
to  say  at  either  Convention,  but  was  a  close  observer  at  both. 
Of  all  the  men,  whom  I  saw  at  Baltimore  or  Chicago,  only 


TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE.  Ixiii 

two  impressed  on  me  the  idea  that  their  purpose  was  to 
relieve  the  distress  of  the  two  poor  divorced  widows,  Mrs. 
White  Labor  and  Mrs.  Black  Labor.  All  the  rest  impressed 
me  with  the  idea  that  their  "judgment  and  will "  were  under 
the  control  of  the  few,  in  whose  minds  the  designs  of  the  ma 
chine  were  centred;  or  that  egotism,  selfishness,  was  their 
only  motive  ;  that  their  purpose  was  "  to  grind  their  own 
axes,"  and  to  get  some  control  over  the  two  poor  lonesome 
grass  widows,  on  which  they  could  trade,  for  their  own  profit, 
with  the  advocates  of  cheap  labor. 

Can  wan,  pallid  Mrs.  White  Labor  find  an  asylum  in  the 
cabin  of  her  dusky  rival,  Mrs.  Black  Labor,  now  the  favored 
mistress  of  that  wild  enfant  perdu,  Imperialism,  who  is  trav 
elling,  incog.,  through  the  United  States,  under  .the  assumed 
name  of  Republicanism  ? 

Pshaw !  Let  Pharisees,  who  trade  upon,  and  grow  rich  by, 
negrophilism,  falsely  prate  about  the  equality  or  superiority 
of  the  negro  over  the  white  race,  in  all  intellectual,  moral, 
physical,  social,  and  political  aptitudes.  Let  charlatans  in 
statesmanship  vainly  delude  themselves  with  the  belief, 
that,  by  such  legislation  as  the  Akerman  Election  Bill  of 
Georgia,  they  can  vote  negroes,  without  challenge,  as  often 
as  their  party  necessities  require.  Let  would-be  emperors 
fondly  imagine  that,  because  the  "colored  troops  fouglit  nobly" 
the  colored  vote  can  be  used  to  make  them  small  Neros  or 
Caligulas.  All  this  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.  It  is 
historically  certain  —  at  least  I  firmly  believe  —  that  thirty 
millions  of  the  Caucasian  race  will  not  long  consent  to  leave 
their  destinies  under  the  control  of  four  millions  of  ignorant 
negroes,  misled  by  bad  white  men,  of  very  little  more  intel 
lect  than  the  negro,  and  with  hearts  blacker  than  the  negro's 
skin. 

Oh,  that  these  poor  divorced  women  could  turn  to  some 
one  of  the  noble  and  gallant  men,  whom  they  called  "rebels," 
when  in  fact  they  were  risking  life  and  fortune,  and  lost  every- 


Ixiv  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

thing  but  honor,  for  their  sakes  and  in  their  cause  !  I  could 
speak  to  them  of  men,  whose  names  a»e  synonyms  for  all  that 
is  great  in  intellect,  noble  in  conduct,  pure  in  morals,  knightly 
in  courtesy.  I  could  point  to  one  in  Georgia,  a  native  Geor 
gian  ;  brave  as  Marshal  Ney,  eagle-eyed  and  skilful  as  the 
first  Napoleon,  devout  and  sincere  as  Havelock  or  Robert  E. 
Lee,  the  great  Christian  soldier,  Major-General  John  B.  Gor 
don,  who  was  on  the  battle-field  and  in  the  Episcopal  Church, 
what  Stonewall  Jackson  was  on  the  battle-field  and  in  the 
Presbyterian  Church.  Near  to  him,  in  South  Carolina,  I 
could  point  to  General  William  S.  Walker,  a  Pennsylvanian 
by  birth,  but,  like  Gordon,  "  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche ; " 
one  who  never  deceived  man  or  misled  woman.  I  might 
name  others-.  But,  alas !  all  these  men  were  Southern  rebels. 
They  fought  bravely  and  conscientiously  in  a  cause  they 
believed  to  be  right ;  yet,  they  were  conquered  —  subjugated. 
Now  they  are  prostrate.  The  dusky  mistress  of  Imperialism 
has  her  pearl-embroidered  slipper  (a)  on  their  necks. 

Is  there,  then,  no  hope  for  the  widows  —  is  there  no  help 
for  the  widows'  sons  and  daughters  ? 

Yes.  In  the  Democracy  of  the  Great  West,  there  yet 
remain  traces  of  the  pure  republicanism  of  Jefferson  and 
Madison,  of  Calhoun  and  Webster.  There  labor  can  find 
statesmen,  who  have  never  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal  or  to 
Mammon,  nor  accepted  the  idea  that,  in  the  progress  of  civil 
ization,  the  great  objects  of  social  and  political  science  are  to 
cheapen  labor,  and  to  regulate  the  diet  of  American  working 
men  and  women  by  the  smallest  quantities  of  rice  and  fish, 
on  which  an  Asiatic  can  exist. 

The  first  great  need  of  labor  is  an  honest  and  economical 
administration  of  Government.  Prodigal  expenditures  require 
oppressive  taxation,  which,  however  disguised  by  the  subtle 
and  artful  contrivances  of  modern  legislation,  labor  and  the 
products  of  labor  in  the  end  have  to  pay.  (b) 

(a)  See  chap.  xvii. 

(b)  See  chap,  xiv.,  on  the  Fall  of  the  Ancient  Trades'  Unions. 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE.  Ixv 

But  what,  more  than  all  else,  oppresses  labor,  and  all,  who 
employ  labor  in  the  pursuits  of  productive  industry,  is  the 
subtle  and  artful  fiscal  contrivance,  by  which  the  control  of 
the  money  of  the  country  is  centred  in  a  few  hands,  enabling 
them  by  combination  and  concert  of  action  to  raise  or  lower 
the  prices  of  the  products  of  labor  at  pleasure,  by  making 
money  scarce  when  they  wish  to  buy,  and  abundant  when 
they  wish  to  sell.  "  Never,"  said  Mr.  Calhoun  in  the  Senate, 
October  3,  1837  —  "Never  was  an  engine  invented  better 
calculated  to  place  the  destiny  of  the  many  in  the  hands  of 
the  few,  or  less  favorable  to  that  equality  and  independence, 
which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  our  free  institutions." 

I  wish  here  to  repeat,  what  I  have  said  in  my  dedication, 
that  under  the  designation  of  "  The  Laboring  and  Burgher 
Classes  of  America,"  I  include  all  of  the  learned  professions 
—  all,  who  labor  with  the  brain  or  with  the  hand  —  all,  who 
wish  to  live  and  grow  rich  by  the  fruits  of  their  own  honest 
industry  —  all,  who  do  not  seek  to  live  by  plundering  the 
Federal  or  State  treasuries,  nor  by  Congressional  or  State 
class  legislation. 

What  they  all  require  is  an  abundant  and  cheap  measure 
of  prices,  of  uniform  and  stable  value. 

But  a  further  discussion  of  this  subject  would  make  this 
preface  too  long,  and  I  propose  to  treat  of  it  in  another  book. 

If  I  have  succeeded  in  dispelling  some  few  of  the  many 
errors,  under  which  the  Northern  and  Western  mind  have 
been  befogged,  in  reference  to  the  causes  and  results  of  the 
late  Civil  War  in  America,  my  present  purpose  will  have 
been  accomplished. 

BEN.  E.  GREEN. 

HOPEWELL,  near  Dalton, 
Whitfield  County,  Georgia, 
February,  1871. 


INTRODUCTION 

TO 

UNIVERSAL   HISTORY. 


PART  FIRST. 


NOTE.  —  Part  Second,  by  the  same  author  and  translator,  will  contain  the 
History  of  the  Noble  Classes. 


Ixvii 


ectication. 


TO  M.  GUIZOT. 

I  DEDICATE  THIS  BOOK  TO  YOU,  AS  THE  PRINCE  OF  THE  HISTORIANS  OF 
OUR  AGE.  YOU  WILL  RECOGNIZE  IN  IT  THE  TRACE  OF  YOUR  PRIN 
CIPLES  AND  THE  FRUIT  OF  YOUR  COUNSELS,  IF  I  HAVE  BEEN 
ABLE'TO  COMPREHEND  THE  FORMER  AND  PROFIT  BY 
THE  LATTER.    BE  PLEASED  TO  BELIEVE  THAT 
I  WOULD  HAVE  DESIRED  TO  ADDRESS  IT 
TO  YOU,  AS  THE  MAN,  WHOM  I  MOST 
RESPECT,  IF  I  HAD  NOT  OFFERED 
IT  TO  YOU,  AS  THE  HISTO 
RIAN,  WHOM  I  MOST 

ADMIRE. 

A.  GRANIER  DE  CASSAGNAC. 

Ixix 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 


THIS  is  not  a  political  work.  It  is  a  book  of  history.  I  do 
not  propose,  nor  attack,  nor  defend,  any  social  theory.  I 
relate  and  discuss  facts. 

I  hasten  to  express  myself  thus ;  because,  in  spite  of  the  great 
liberty  of  thought  that  this  age  enjoys,  we  live  in  a  time  when  polit 
ical  parties,  like  the  ancient  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne,  assume  an 
absolute  jurisdiction  over  every  idea,  whatever  it  may  be,  in  litera 
ture  or  in  art.  They  pretend  that  every  poet  who  sings,  every  dra 
matist  who  writes,  every  painter  who  designs,  every  sculptor  who 
chisels,  every  wise  man  who  calculates  or  analyzes,  should  direct 
their  verses,  their  scenic  combinations,  their  paintings,  their  sta 
tues,  their  theorems,  to  certain  results  of  constitutional  progress 
and  representative  amelioration,  as  the  theologians  of  former  days 
required  poets  and  philosophers,  jurisconsults  and  astronomers, 
Vanini  and  Ramus,  Servetus  and  Galileo,  to  conform  to  the  letter 
of  the  decretals  and  the  canons. 

Small  as  I  am  among  the  young  laborers,  who  work  on^the  ethics 
of  this  age,  I,  for  my  part,  protest  against  the  tyranny  of  parties. 
Poets,  artists,  and  learned  men,  when  God  gave  them  the  knowledge 
of  the  elevated  things  of  this  world,  became  invested  with  a  su 
premacy  too  noble  and  too  kingly,  to  descend,  without  abasement, 
to  become  the  servants  of  political  cabals,  or  to  be  required,  in 
searching  for  the  object  and  conditions  of  their  works,  to  satisfy  any 
other  exigencies  than  those  of  poetry,  science,  and  art. 

I  know  that  for  some  years  there  has  been  a  desire  to  accustom 
the  public  to  other  principles.  I  know  that  the  desire  has  been  to 
have  it  believed  that  what  constituted  great  writers  and  great  artists 
was  to  give  their  time,  their  heads,  and  their  hands,  to  the  study 

Ixxi 


Ixxii  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

and  satisfaction  of  what  is  called  the  wants  of  the  age  ;  but  I  know 
also  that  those,  who  put  forward  these  ideas  and  use  this  jargon, 
never  did,  and  beyond  doubt  never  could,  write  a  book,  or  execute 
a  work  of  art,  and  that  they  have  their  reasons  for  wishing  to  steal 
by  fraud  into  the  family  of  the  learned,  and  to  taste  the  joy  of  tri 
umph,  without  having  passed  through  the  anguish  of  the  strife. 

I  have  already  said,  my  ideas  are  different ;  and  1  have  put  them 
at  the  beginning  of  this  book;  that  those,  who  may  be  tempted 
to  open  it,  may  not  be  surprised  by  finding  it  a  stranger  to  all  the 
pretensions,  to  all  the  cliques,  to  all  the  grudges  of  the  moment. 

Nevertheless,  little  as  I  revere  the  parties,  who  oppress  France ; 
little  as  I  respect  their  bright  lights  \  little  confidence  as  I  have  in 
their  duration,  I  would  not  have  it  thought  that  I  am  indifferent  to 
the  destiny  of  my  country,  and  that  I  consider  the  different  theories 
now  contesting  for  mastery  as  equally  unworthy  the  attention  of  a 
man  of  study.  During  the  seven  years,  which  I  have  devoted  to 
collecting  the  materials  for  this  book,  I  have  been  witness  to  many 
outrages  and  many  crimes ;  and  at  each  hurrah,  that  the  dishevelled 
rioters  gave  in  the  streets ;  at  each  grimacing  bravado,  that  assas 
sination  threw  up  from  the  planks  of  the  scaffold,  I  have  found  it 
necessary  to  plunge  deeper  into  the  solitude  of  old  books,  to  find 
in  this  necropolis  of  the  illustrious  dead  of  Greece  and  Italy  silence 
enough  to  guard  me  from  the  noise,  that  distracts,  and  calmness 
enough  to  guard  me  from  the  emotion,  that  excites. 

No,  indeed ;  I  have  not  abstained  from  politics,  because  I  dis 
dained  it,  but  because  I  feared  it. 

For  more  than  fifty  years,  the  greater  part  of  the  men,  who  have 
written,  or  who  now  write,  on  politics,  seem  to  me  to  have  mis 
understood  its  nature  and  its  temper.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me 
that  every  science  had  its  proper  place  and  its  special  necessities. 
For  example,  geometry  lives  by  the  logical  deduction  of  abstract 
ideas,  and  chemistry  by  the  exact  analysis  of  material  objects.  By 
analogy,  I  have  been  pressed  to  believe,  and  I  believe  firmly,  that 
politics,  to  become  a  science,  must  take  history  for  its  base ;  and 
that,  its  object  being  to  rule  and  govern  men,  who  are  neither  blind 
matter  nor  abstractions,  and  who  consequently  are  beyond  the  cus 
tomary  methods  of  the  exact  sciences,  it  becomes  necessary  to 
observe  in  history  the  laws  peculiar  to  man  and  to  peoples,  to  lay 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE.  Ixxiii 

aside  generalities,  theorems,  syllogisms,  all  the  apparatus  of  ideolo 
gists  and  dreamers,  and  search  in  the  jurists,  the  philosophers,  the 
poets,  among  all  those,  who  have  written  concerning  man  and 
nations,  about  his  heart  and  mind,  his  feelings  and  his  ideas,  the 
secret  tendency  of  individuals,  of  families,  and  of  society. 

Outside  of  this  path,  politics  appear  to  me  barren  and  worthless. 
For  thirty  centuries  it  was  obstinately  tried  to  study  chemistry  by 
reasoning;  and  they  did  not  succeed  in  the  decomposition  of  a  peb 
ble-stone.  Since  forty  years  it  has  been  studied  by  observation, 
and  already  the  half  of  the  secrets  of  nature  have  been  discovered. 
Now,  politics  are,  in  the  order  of  moral  things,  what  chemistry  is 
in  the  order  of  material  things,  a  science  of  observation  and  analy 
sis  ;  only  much  more  difficult ;  because  man,  whom  it  has  to  observe 
and  know,  is  much  more  complex  than  matter.  Let  us  not,  then, 
be  surprised  at  the  vanity  of  our  long  domestic  strifes.  Politics  are 
like  a  gun :  when  we  pull  the  trigger,  it  only  emits  what  has  been 
put  into  it.  For  forty  years  we  have  loaded  it  with  crude  phrases, 
and  it  throws  out  crude  phrases.  Load  it  with  well-observed  facts, 
and  it  will  give  you  solid  institutions. 

The  science  of  politics,  then,  needs  to  be  preceded  by  another 
science,  which  is  history.  Without  this  guide,  it  is  not  a  science, 
but  poor  nonsense,  unworthy  the  leisure  hours  of  a  man  of  sense. 
Now,  if  I  have  abstained  from  politics,  it  is  because,  in  my  opinion, 
history  has  not  yet  been  written,  and  I  had  no  wish  to  set  on  the 
pillory  a  book  of  generalities,  the  use  of  which  is  sterile,  and  the 
abuse  fatal. 

Now,  as  I  think  history  has  never  yet  been  written,  I  will  explain 
what  I  mean,  for  the  benefit  of  those  good  and  patient  readers,  who 
never  get  angry  with  their  books ;  who  find  how  never  to  open  one 
without  learning  something,  and  who  can  believe,  that  when  the  pend 
ing  works  of  the  day  are  brought  to  an  end,  we  should  leave  the  old 
chronicles  to  rest  in  peace,  and  declare  to  the  present,  that  it  should, 
hereafter,  hold  itself  to  be  sufficiently  instructed  in  all  the  secrets 
of  past  times. 

Certainly,  if  any  age  has  reason  to  be  dissatisfied  with  its  historic 

labors,  ours  has  not.     Men  of  the  greatest  learning,  others  of  the 

greatest  merit,  have,  for  twenty  years,  treated  many  difficulties  of 

ancient  and  modern  history.     Each  one  of  them  has  cleared  away 

6 


Ixxiv  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

some  part  of  the  immense  mass  of  the  rubbish  of  past  ages,  and  has 
reconstructed  in  some  one  of  its  essential  parts  the  monument  of 
their  lives,  which  the  people  of  former  days  have  erected  :  a  monu 
ment,  which  is  called  politics,  when  it  is^standing;  and  history, 
when  it  has  been  overthrown. 

Thus  I  delight  to  recognize,  first  of  all,  that  few  epochs  have 
done  in  history  more  or  better  than  ours.  And  first,  hi  this  mat 
ter,  we  should  mention  M.  Guizot.  His  monographs  on  different 
questions  of  Roman  history  and  of  the  middle  ages,  have  marked 
the  path  we  must  all  follow,  if  we  wish  to  give  to  history  the  ele 
ments  of  strict  demonstration  and  a  positive  basis.  Moreover,  by 
his  lessons  and  his  general  ideas  on  modern  civilization,  M.  Guizot 
has  produced  in  France,  a  true,  pure,  and  correct  historic  sentiment, 
which  will  be  the  cause,  and  the  precursor  of  rapid  progress  and 
lasting  conquests.  It  is  not  impossible,  that  his  later  works,  which 
in  the  mind  of  the  author  were  only  a  sketch,  may  perhaps  some 
day  be  surpassed  by  a  finer  and  more  delicate  analysis  of  facts,  and 
a  more  elevated  and  complete  synthesis  of  ideas.  For,  as  Buffon 
justly  observes,  it  is  the  fate  of  inventors  to  be  despoiled  by  those, 
who  come  after  them ;  but  it  is  none  the  less  certain,  even  on  this 
hypothesis,  that  whatever  may  be  done  hereafter  in  history,  correct 
and  great,  M.  Guizot  will  have  rendered  it  possible. 

Thus  the  Spirit  of  the  Laws  is  now  a  book  half  dethroned  —  no 
one,  however,  will  wish  to  take  away  from  Montesquieu  the  glory  of 
having  produced  in  his  time,  as  M.  Guizot  has  in  ours,  a  certain  sen 
timent  of  elevated,  calm,  and  profound  criticism.  This  sentiment 
may  be  said  to  be  the  soul  of  good  books  —  a  soul,  which  lives 
always,  even  when  the  books  are  no  more.  After  this,  who  will  so 
far  forget  his  condition  as  to  promise  himself  all  the  future?  When 
one  really  labors  at  intellectual  work,  which  the  human  mind  pur 
sues  incessantly,  it  matters  little  when  he  is  buried.  God  always 
finds  him. 

After,  and  alongside  of,  M.  Guizot,  other  men,  younger  and  of 
less  elevated  ideas,  have,  nevertheless,  undertaken  and  accomplished 
works,  which  all,  more  or  less,  enter  into  this  new  historic  spirit,  of 
which  we  speak ;  works,  which  are  more  seed  than  fruit,  but  of  which 
any  epoch  might  be  proud,  and  of  which  ours  boasts,  with  good 
reason. 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE.  Ixxv 

M.  Augustin  Thierry,  in  whom,  perhaps,  we  do  not  find  that  great 
elevation  of  view  necessary  to  measure  the  vast  historic  horizon, 
nor  that  complete  and  abundant  learning  required  for  the  explana 
tion  of  far  separated  epochs,  is,  nevertheless,  a  wonderful  work 
man,  in  restoring,  by  his  very  confused  episodes,  the  personal  and 
dramatic  aspect  of  the  middle  ages.  His  ideas,  generally,  only 
touch,  or  penetrate  very  little  below,  the  surface  of  things ;  but  the 
patient  carving  of  his  embellishments  is  always  that  of  a  work  at 
once  vast  and  severe,  capricious  and  exact. 

M.  Michelet  is  a  very  noble  and  great  historian.  His  ideas  always 
step  along  with  head  erect  and  high,  and  the  poet  might  have  said 
of  him,  that  he  sought  the  royal  road  to  heaven,  viamque  affectat 
Olympo.  Nevertheless  it  is  in  my  opinion  questionable  whether 
the  time  has  yet  come  to  undertake  what  he  has  undertaken.  In 
my  eyes,  M.  Michelet  is  a  sculptor,  who  has  mistaken  the  hour  and 
has  arrived  at  the  foot  of  the  monument  before  the  masons  had 
left  it.  Certainly  it  is  a  very  legitimate  curiosity,  worthy  of  the 
brightest  minds,  to  wish  to  learn  the  most  elevated,  the  most  ideal, 
the  most  accurate  signification  of  the  history  of  nations.  But  is  it 
not  necessary  to  wait  for  that,  until  all  the  preparatory  work  shall 
have  been,  if  not  finished,  at  least  commenced  ?  In  every  edifice, 
must  not  the  foundations  first  be  laid  ?  M.  Michelet  may  then  be 
said  to  have  occupied  himself  prematurely  with  the  abstract  and 
supreme  meaning  of  history.  The  last  word  in  the  life  of  nations 
is  composed  of  many  letters.  How  many  of  them  have  yet  been 
written  legibly  ? 

Along  with  these  didactic  historians,  who  directly,  and  we  may 
say  professionally,  teach  and  study  history,  we  must  name  a  writer, 
who  has  illuminated  one  whole  immense  and  obscure  side  of  the 
middle  ages  —  that  of  arts,  of  public  manners,  and  of  the  feudal 
family.  This  was  M.  Victor  Hugo.  Those,  who  maybe  astonished 
to  hear  us  speak  of  M.  Victor  Hugo  as  one  of  the  most  eminent 
historians  of  the  age,  have  not  observed  that  great  poets  seize  upon 
certain  aspects  of  the  life  of  peoples  more  readily  than  the  learned 
and  the  chronologists.  Besides,  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  there 
is  more  of  Greek  history  in  Homer  than  in  Pausanias,  and  more 
of  Latin  history  in  Virgil  than  in  Sallust. 

I  have  said  and  freely  repeat,  then,  that  our  epoch  is  rich  in 


Ixxvi  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

remarkable  historians,  and  especially  opulent  in  historic  intelligence 
and  aptitude.  But  what  great  and  definitive  results  has  it  obtained? 
We  scarcely  dare  to  count  them.  The  historians  have  not  under 
stood  each  other,  either  in  their  plan  of  work,  or  in  their  critical 
ideas.  Hence  the  works  of  one  have  not  abided  to  the  works  of 
another ;  their  efforts  have  not  aided  each  other,  are  not  complete, 
do  not  make  parts  of  a  whole  ;  in  the  collection  of  their  works 
there  is  neither  logical  sequence  nor  design.  With  profound  learn 
ing,  great  intelligence,  and  indefatigable  research,  history  has  not 
been  written  and  settled,  except  in  some  very  limited  matters,  like 
the  map  of  those  unknown  countries,  on  which  only  a  few  harbors 
and  rivers  are  marked  with  certainty. 

General  history,  significant  history,  conclusive  history,  has  not 
yet  been  written,  as  we  have  said.  More  than  that,  it  is  not  yet 
possible.  The  traditions  of  the  ancient  and  modern  world  are  in 
fact  like  that  geographical  chart  just  mentioned.  We  have  only  the 
position  of  a  very  few  points  exactly  and  geometrically  indicated. 
The  position  of  all  the  others  is  vague,  uncertain,  speculative,  very 
questionable  and  very  much  disputed,  without  counting  the  numer 
ous  and  immense  blanks,  which  serve  to  indicate  deserts  and  unex 
plored  regions. 

These  gaps,  still  left  in  general  history,  terrify  by  their  numbers 
and  extent,  and  we  dare  not  ask  when  at  last  we  can  know  the  exact 
and  real  configuration  of  humanity. 

For  example,  who  has  thought  of  writing  the  history  of  the 
family ;  that  is  to  say,  the  history  of  all  the  variations,  which  the 
relations  of  husband  and  wife,  father  and  son,  father  and  daughter, 
master  and  servant,  mother  and  children,  have  passed  through,  since 
the  commencement  of  nations,  and  among  all  people,  both  as  to 
moral  authority  and  in  respect  to  property  ? 

Who  has  thought  of  writing  the  history  of  law ;  that  is  to  say,  to 
determine,  by  the  laws,  every  kind  of  association,  that  men  have 
been  led  to  form  with  each  other,  and  to  discover  the  general  tend 
ency  of  human  associability  in  the  special  character  of  all  its  local 
and  temporary  conjunctions  ? 

Who  has  written  the  history  of  language  and  literature ;  the 
history  of  religion ;  the  history  of  administrative  institutions  ;  the 
history  of  judicial  institutions  ;  the  history  of  the  military  art ;  the 


PREFACE.  Ixxvii 

history  of  commerce ;  the  history  of  agriculture ;  the  history  of 
architecture;  the  history  of  heraldry;  the  history  of  furniture, 
dress,  and  domestic  life  ? 

Here  we  have  so  many  series  of  facts,  running  through  and 
through  the  history  of  all  peoples,  and  of  which  it  is  impossible  for 
any  one  to  say  anything  precise  and  clear,  without  danger  of  fatal 
or  ridiculous  errors.  All  that  the  writers  of  general  history  can  do 
is  to  make  more  or  less  mistakes  on  all  these  unknown  matters,  and 
to  fall  back  upon  dates,  battles,  lists  of  emperors,  the  passages  of 
rivers,  and  the  captures  of  cities.  But,  in  good  conscience,  is  this 
the  history  of  the  peoples?  No. 

What  is  to  be  done,  then,  in  this  situation  of  studies  ?  In  my 
opinion,  the  position  is  difficult,  but  simple.  Each  one  must  take 
his  particular  task,  and  accept  the  consequences  of  the  want  of 
accord  and  consecutiveness,  which  has  heretofore  prevailed  in  the 
works  of  historians.  It  becomes  necessary  to  renounce  general 
history,  which  is  impossible,  and  grapple  resolutely  with  mono 
graphs,  dissertations,  and  special  treatises.  We  must  become 
learned ;  (I  return  to  the  comparison,  because  it  is  clear  and  exact,) 
we  must  write  history  as  they  make  geographical  charts,  measuring 
with  precision  each  portion  of  land,  and  not  passing  to  the  second, 
until  the  first  has  been  indicated  with  all  possible  exactness.  When 
we  shall  have  thus  solved,  one  after  another,  all  the  special  difficul 
ties  of  tradition,  we  need  not  trouble  ourselves  to  know  who  will 
write  general  history.  It  will  be  written. 

So  I  have  thought  and  acted.  This  book  is  the  first-fruits  of  my 
conviction. 

Nevertheless,  my  conviction  once  formed,  I  was  not  at  the  end 
of  my  doubts.  When  I  had  decided  to  attempt  special  dissertations 
and  treatises,  I  found  myself  stopped  by  another  grave  difficulty, 
which  is  this :  I  asked  myself  if  all  these  monographs  were  inde 
pendent  of  each  other ;  if  I  could  commence  with  this  or  that  one 
indifferently ;  if  there  was  any  connection  between  them  by  any 
certain  logical  order  or  fixed  dependence,  so  that  it  was  necessary 
to  begin  with  that,  which  was  the  key  of  all  the  others,  under  penalty 
of  plunging  into  labors,  not  only  long  but  useless.  Such  a  question 
could  only  be  solved  by  experiment.  So  I  attempted  the  study  of 
the  first  specialty,  which  presented  itself,  the  history  of  law. 


Ixxviii  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

Scarce  entered  upon  the  history  of  law,  I  discovered  that  all  laws 
were  fundamentally  divided  into  two  groups — feudal  laws  and  civil 
laws ;  and  that  these  were  based  on  two  classes  of  men,  historically 
distinct  and  separated  —  the  nobles  and  the  common  people.  It 
was  thus  clearly  demonstrated  for  me,  from  the  first  steps,  that  this 
history  of  law  should  be  preceded  by  another,  which  is  the  history 
of  the  noble  and  of  the  freed  races. 

Once  convinced  that  the  history  of  law  was  not  the  point  of  de 
parture,  nor  the  key  of  the  system,  I  undertook  another  specialty, 
the  history  of  the  family.  Here  the  first  facts  observed  showed  me 
the  existence  of  two  species  of  families :  one,  in  which  the  paternal 
authority  was  more  or  less  absolute,  and  property  entailed ;  another, 
in  which  the  paternal  authority  was  scarcely  perceptible  and  pro 
perty  was  movable  and  alienable.  The  first  of  these  two  species 
of  families  belonged  to  the  nobles,  the  second  to  the  common 
people.  Thus  the  history  of  the  family,  like  the  history  of  law, 
brought  me  back  to  the  noble  and  freed  races. 

I  made  the  same  experiments  on  the  greater  part  of  the  historic 
specialties  of  some  elevation  and  extent,  and  I  was  always  brought 
back  to  this  result :  that  the  primitive  part  of  history,  that  which  is 
nearest  the  root,  that,  on  which  all  others  depend,  that,  from  the 
foot  of  which  all  others  start,  as  streams  of  water  from  their  head 
springs,  is  the  fact  of  the  noble  races  and  the  slave  races. 

This  result  once  reached,  the  great  primordial  fact  of  the  noble 
races  and  the  slave  races  became  for  me  the  object  of  constant  and 
continued  study.  I  searched  into  its  origin,  its  development,  its 
character,  and  I  remained  entirely  convinced  that  it  was  like  a  high 
mountain  with  two  water -sheds,  from  the  top  of  which  all  the 
secondary  chain^  of  history  started  out,  to  flow  down  and  be  lost  in 
the  infinite. 

In  my  view,  the  noble  and  the  slave  races  are  the  two  moieties 
of  human  history,  which  make  it  up  faithfully  and  entirely,  whether 
we  consider  them  in  their  highest  generality  or  most  local  specialty. 
By  taking  this  fact  as  a  base  and  following  it  up  through  all  its  radi 
ations,  we  arrive  at  the  rapid,  comprehensive,  and  complete  intelli 
gence  of  all  the  details  of  the  life  of  peoples  ;  —  laws,  family,  poli 
tics,  art ;  — we  see  the  birth,  the  growth,  the  development  of  all. 

What,  then,  is  this  fact  of  the  noble  and  slave  races  ?     This  is  the 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE.         Ixxix 

secret  of  this  book.  However,  the  volume  now  published  contains 
only  half  of  the  subject.  It  contains  the  history  of  the  slave  races, 
taken  from  their  point  of  departure,  and  followed  through  all  the 
phases  of  their  social  fortune.  I  will  soon  give  to  the  public  the 
history  of  the  noble  races,  and  until  then,  I  ought  to  add  that  many 
of  my  thoughts  will  naturally  appear  obscure  and  incomplete,  be 
cause  the  members  are  only  thoroughly  explained  by  a  study  of  the 
whole  body. 

The  historic  method,  which  I  have  just  explained  and  which  I 
have  followed,  and  especially  the  point  of  view,  which  has  given  me 
the  idea  of  this  book,  have  thrown  me  entirely  out  of  the  ordinary- 
paths  of  science.  I  do  not  conceal,  then,  the  strangeness  of  the 
principles,  which  I  have  sought  to  establish,  and  the  many  repug 
nances,  which  I  run  the  risk  of  exciting.  I  accept  with  confidence 
the  hazards  of  the  public  judgment,  for  truth  can  always  defend  it 
self.  If,  perchance,  I  may  have  been  mistaken  in  one  or  other  of 
my  convictions,  I  may  give  them  up  for  others  that  are  better. 

The  only  thing,  that  could  be  painful  and  sad  to  me,  would  be 
that  any  one  should  doubt  the  perfect  sincerity  of  my  ideas,  from 
any  paradoxical  taint,  that  might  at  first  glance  be  seen.  I  have 
not  labored  for  seven  successive  years,  without  a  day's  intermission, 
to  mystify  the  public  or  deceive  myself. 

However,  I  have  not  wished  to  be  believed  on  my  word  in  a 
matter  so  novel,  and  therefore  so  open  to  discussion.  It  will  be  seen 
that  I  have  quoted  literally  all  the  essential  evidences,  which  have 
served  to  form  my  opinion  and  support  my  doctrine.  It  was  neces 
sary,  first,  to  justify  the  entirely  new  historic  path,  which  I  have 
ventured  upon,  and  secondly,  because,  as  many  of  my  ideas  were 
based  on  my  own  interpretation  of  certain  ancient  texts,  it  was  im 
portant  to  show  what  I  had  done  in  this  critical  part  of  my  work. 

I  have  already  given  the  reasons  for  my  belief  that  this  is  at  this 
day  the  best,  the  only  good,  manner  of  writing  history.  If  God 
permits  me  to  follow  the  bent  of  my  studies  and  tastes,  I  will  thus 
take  up,  in  succession,  the  historic  specialties,  which  seem  to  me  in 
dicated  by  the  logic,  which  connects  facts  with  each  other,  and  will 
work  patiently  to  quarry  out  some  stones,  which  some  future  archi 
tect  will  one  day  cement  into  a  general  monument,  erected  to 
human  traditions. 


Ixxx          AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 

Moreover,  it  is  a  profound  conviction  of  my  soul  that  politics 
will  only  cease  to  be  a  dangerous  empiricism,  and  become  a  calm 
and  serene  science,  when  it  takes  history  for  its  point  of  departure. 
For  half  a  century  it  has  felt  the  want  of  a  base,  and  has  sought  one 
in  abstract  theories  about  the  rights  of  mafl  and  other  metaphysical 
entities,  which  have  no  reality  except  in  the  belief  of  those,  who 
accept  them,  and  which  all  the  world  can  deny.  These  theories  are 
to-day  worn  out  and  abandoned,  without  results ;  we  can  rely  on 
that.  Now  that  experience  has  brought  reflection,  it  may  well  be 
said  that  man  is  neither  a  triangle  nor  an  idea,  but  a  complex  being, 
having  a  history,  which  must  be  studied  and  known,  to  appreciate 
his  social  nature,  his  character,  and  his  wants.  The  first  condition 
required  for  finding  out  the  laws  of  the  future,  is  to  know  those  of 
the  past. 

ADOLPHE  GRANIER  DE  CASSAGNAC. 

PARIS,  10/7*  December,  1837. 


HISTORY 

OF  THE 

WORKING  AND  BURGHER  CLASSES, 


CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL  IDEA  OF  THE  PROLETARIAT. 

THE  working  classes  constitute  one  of  the  elements  of  European 
society  in  particular,  and  of  all  civilized  societies  in  general. 
We  add  this  qualification,  because  there  are  societies,  in  which  the 
laboring  classes  do  not  exist.  For  example,  they  are  a  fact  almost 
entirely  unknown  among  the  Arabs  of  Africa,  and  they  have  but 
little  development,  and,  if  we  may  so  speak,  little  spread  in  Russia 
and  Greece,  in  Turkey,  and  in  all  the  East. 

Few  among  those,  who  have  undertaken  to  speak  of  the  working 
classes,  have  remarked  in  them  this  strange  characteristic,  of  existing 
among  certain  people,  and  not  existing  among  others;  of  not  repro 
ducing  themselves  at  all  epochs,  but  of  waiting  certain  moments 
and  in  some  sort  certain  historic  seasons  to  germinate  and  flourish. 
On  the  whole,  there  are  in  the  newspapers,  in  books,  and  in  the 
public  mind,  few  clear  and  fixed  ideas  as  to  working-men.  No  one 
has  ever  thought,  for  example,  of  asking  whether  or  not  they  con 
stitute  a  race  apart  among  the  peoples,  where  they  are  found,  or 
what  cause  produces  them  at  certain  times  and  in  certain  countries 
more  than  in  others;  what  cause  scatters  them  thinly  in  one  coun 
try,  thick  and  swarming  in  another.  In  a  word,  no  one  has  yet 
seriously  concerned  himself  about  their  history ;  more  than  that, 

Si 


82  HISTORY    OF    THE 

and  what  is  worthy  of  note,  no  one  has  been  curious  to  know 
whether  the  working-men  had  a  history,  a  separate  history  of  their 
own,  a  history  actually  unknown,  but  which,  if  written,  would  bring 
the  minds  of  economists  and  statesmen  on  the  track  of  possible, 
easy,  and  immediate  ameliorations. 

The  publicists  of  the  present  time,  who  have  treated  of  the  work 
ing  classes,  have  done  so  without  any  clear,  proper,  and  special 
idea.  They  have  taken  them  in  their  present  condition,  without 
even  asking  if  they  were  always  what  they  are  to-day.  They  have 
no  key,  which  opens  their  historic  nature  and  their  social  significa 
tion,  and  they  move  around  without  being  able  to  seize  them  with 
the  slippery  tweezers  of  their  ideology.  They  know  not,  therefore, 
whence  they  came ;  and  hence  they  know  not  whither  they  go. 

Yes,  indeed,  the  working  classes  have  a  separate  history,  or  rather 
they  have  in  the  general  life  of  nations  a  peculiar  and  distinct 
destiny,  the  recital  of  which  constitutes  a  separate  history,  and 
shows  under  what  conditions  and  at  what  epochs  the  working-men 
appeared,  united,  worked,  lived,  were  perpetuated.  This  history 
has  not  yet  been  composed  and  written  for  two  reasons :  First,  be 
cause  Europe  has  only  to-day  reached  that  period  of  the  social  rev 
olution,  when  the  working  classes  have  acquired  sufficient  develop 
ment  and  importance  for  governments  to  trouble  themselves  and 
for  publicists  to  occupy  themselves  with  them.  Second,  because  his 
tory  is  now  only  emerging  from  the  condition  of  the  epics  and 
chronicles,  in  which  the  ancients  placed  and  our  fathers  left  it,  to 
that  of  criticism,  to  be  studied,  known,  completed,  to  find  out  the 
reason  of  its  poesy  and  the  reflection  of  its  action.  Thus,  on  the  one 
side,  governments  begin  to  note  that  there  is  in  their  mechanism  a 
grit,  which  stops  its  movements,  and  which  has  been  accumulated 
grain  by  grain ;  on  the  other,  historians  begin  to  observe  that  we  have 
upon  our  hands  an  immense  social  fact,  which  they  have  forgotten 
to  notice  in  the  books,  which  they  call  history,  and  which  are  filled 
almost  exclusively  with  the  names  of  battles,  emperors,  and  cap 
tains  ;  so  that  the  working  classes  are  now  rapping  at  the  doors  of 
the  learned  and  of  kings,  and  say  to  the  first,  "  We  want  a  history ; ' ' 
and  to  the  latter,  "  We  want  bread." 

The  principal  reason  why  the  publicists  of  our  time  have  only 
half  succeeded,  when  they  have  treated  of  what  relates  to  the  work- 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  83 

ing  classes,  is,  as  we  have  said,  because  they  have  not  approached 
them  from  the  side  of  history.  The  men,  who  are  now  at  the*head 
of  affairs,  and  those,  who  have  filled  the  last  twenty  years  with  their 
ideas  or  with  their  reputation,  all  belong  by  education  to  the  philo 
sophic  school  of  the  eighteenth  century.  This  is  the  school  whose 
theories  are  found  most  clearly  and  eloquently  summed  up  and  re 
lated  in  the  Social  Contract,  and  in  the  Discourse  on  the  Lie  quality 
of  Conditions,  and  from  its  time  critical  history  has  not  been  at 
tempted  except  by  Vico,  whom  France  did  not  recognize ;  which 
has  led  all  the  publicists,  since  the  Revolution  of  1789,  to  enter  upon 
the  question  of  the  working-men  and  the  poor  —  of  the  people,  in 
short  —  from  the  side  of  abstractions,  of  those  rights  of  men  in  gen 
eral,  which  the  eighteenth  century  made  the  fundamental  axiom  of 
political  science. 

Nevertheless,  there  were  two  great  inconveniences  in  this  mode 
of  proceeding.  To  draw  to  and  absorb  in  the  great  abstraction 
contained  in  the  word  man,  the  working-men  and  the  poor,  that  is 
to  say,  the  people,  and  to  assume  as  a  principle  the  absolute  unity 
and  identity  of  the»rights  and  duties  of  all,  was  to  prejudge  the  ques 
tion,  whether  there  are  in  the  history  of  mankind  different  races  suited 
to  different  political  functions,  of  different  social  destinies,  and  who, 
having  thus  different  duties,  should  therefore  have  different  rights. 
We  don't  say  positively  that  these  races  exist,  which  would  upset 
the  axiom  of  the  rights  of  man,  but  when  the  eighteenth  century 
asserted  that  they  did  not  exist,  it  manifestly  begged  the  question, 
that  is  to  say,  it  answered  the  question  by  the  question. 

Then  to  make  of  the  working-men  and  the  poor  ciphers  contained 
and  added  up  in  the  grand  total  man,  is  to  launch  out  upon  a  series 
of  operations  perfectly  strict  in  themselves,  but  entirely  barren  of 
results.  In  effect,  if  a  working-man  is  only  an  abstract  citizen,  a 
human  unity  equal  to  every  other  human  unity,  we  make  of  him  a 
quotient  of  the  sovereignty,  which  is  the  grand  social  dividend. 
Now  this  method  only  ends  in  giving  to  the  citizen-quotient  a  share 
in  the  ballot.  If  the  citizen  has  the  wherewith  to  live,  he  may  dis 
charge  his  arithmetical  function  as  a  pastime ;  but  if  he  is  poor,  if 
this  abstraction  of  a  citizen  covers  some  reality  like  the  working 
class,  which  has  neither  bread  for  the  table  nor  clothing  for  the 
body,  the  ballot  will  certainly  not  give  him  either  the  one  or  the. 


84  HISTORY    OF    THE 

other,  and  all  imaginable  contrivances  of  abstract  citizens,  attempted 
after  *the  manner  of  the  ideologists,  only  lead  to  a  complete  mysti 
fication  in  politics  and  in  industry. 

For  fifty  years  this  abstract  idea  of  the  man  and  the  citizen  has 
been  discussed  over  and  over,  without  arriving  at  any  but  a  logical 
though  barren  solution;  and  the  question  remains  still  and  will 
always  remain  where  Rousseau  placed  it,  and  at  the  point  to  which 
he  brought  it,  without  .being  able,  whatever  one  may  do,  either  to 
advance  or  recede  ;  which  shows  that  it  was  inexpediently  carried 
into  ideology,  which  is  the  domain  of  pure  ideas,  instead  of  being 
carried  into  history,  which  is  the  place  for  the  positive  and  complex 
facts  of  politics. 

Now,  then,  to  be  wise,  we  must  profit  by  the  faults  of  the  ideol 
ogists,  not  obstinately  to  take  men  for  triangles,  not  imprudently 
to  mix  politics  and  geometry ;  to  distinguish  the  mathematical  from 
the  social  question,  which  for  our  part  we  will  take  care  to  do.  Thus, 
instead  of  saying  that  a  working-man  is  a  citizen,  a  member  of  the 
sovereignty,  which  is  obvious  and  proper,  but  leads  to  nothing  use 
ful,  we  will  search  in  history  for  what  the  working-man  really  is,  what 
is  his  origin,  what  causes  produce  him  here,  exclude  him  there,  and 
multiply  him  elsewhere,  in  order  that,  his  social  nature  being  known, 
his  propensities  studied,  it  may  become  possible  and  easy  to  draw  from 
the  knowledge  of  his  past  and  present  the  formula  of  his  future. 

The  working  classes,  however  general  and  widespread  this  ele 
ment  of  society  may  be,  proceed  nevertheless  from  another  social 
element  much  more  widespread  and  general  still.  This  great  his 
toric  fact,  simple,  primordial,  which  precedes  the  working  classes, 
and  of  which  they  are  a  branch,  a  subdivision,  and  a  fragment,  is 
the  proletariat. 

The  proletariat  is  thus,  according  to  our  ideas,  a  primitive  and  gen 
eral  element  of  society,  in  which  the  working  classes  take  their  origin. 

In  a  work  so  difficult  and  delicate  as  this,  we  need,  first,  that  the 
reader  shall  accord  to  us  his  good-will ;  second,  that  he  shall  have 
patience  with  our  reasoning,  and  wait,  sometimes  for  a  page,  some 
times  for  two,  the  slow  and  tardy  proofs,  which  often  perhaps  it 
may  be  difficult  to  produce,  to  test,  to  classify  and  put  in  line;  third, 
that  he  will  permit  us  to  advance  certain  general  assertions,  which 
we  will  afterward  establish,  but  which  it  will  be  more  convenient 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  8$ 

for  us  first  to  throw  out  without  demonstration ;  fourth  and  lastly, 
that  he  will  not  dispute  everything  with  us  step  by  step,  but  give  us 
a  little  free  scope  and  let  us  tell  all,  that  he  may  judge  of  what  we 
'have  done. 

We  do  not  concern  ourselves  with  the  meaning,  which  the  word 
proletary  derives  from  its  Latin  etymology.  Proletarius  designated 
a  thing  peculiar  to  the  constitution  of  Rome  ;  the  word,  proletary, 
denotes,  according  to  our  ideas,  a  thing  common  to  all  societies. 

Thus,  for  example,  there  is  among  the  peoples  of  modern  Europe, 
and  there  has  been  among  the  peoples  of  ancient  Europe,  a  mass, 
more  or  less  considerable,  of  families  and  individuals,  forming  the 
lowest  position,  the  lowest  stratum  of  society.  Ordinarily  these  fam 
ilies  and  individuals  live  by  the  painful  and  daily  labor  of  their  hands ; 
the  wages  of  th£  day  before  is  all  they  have  for  the  morrow,  and 
landed  property,  when  they  succeed  in  obtaining  it,  is  for  them  much 
less  the  rule  than  the  exception.  These  men,  who  are  not  landed 
proprietors,  who  never  have  been,  and  whom  one  cannot  venture  to 
promise  that  they  ever  will  be ;  these  poor  men,  obscure,  without 
fortune  accumulated  and  transmitted  from  father  to  son,  and  for 
whom  all  the  domestic  traditions  are  reduced  to  the  necessity  of 
gaining  their  daily  bread  ;  these  men  are  the  PROLETARIES  —  the  con 
dition  to  which  they  belong  is  the  PROLETARIAT. 

This  being  established,  see  what  the  proletariat  embraces :  ist, 
working-men;  2d,  mendicants;  3d,  thieves;  4th,  women  of  the  town. 

A  working-man  is  a  proletary  who  works  and  gains  wages  for  a 
living. 

A  mendicant  is  a  proletary  who  will  not  or  cannot  work,  and  who 
begs  for  a  living. 

A  thief  is  a  proletary  who  will  neither  work  nor  beg,  and  who 
steals  for  a  living. 

A  woman  of  the  town  is  a  proletary,  who  will  neither  work,  nor 
beg,  nor  steal,  and  who  prostitutes  herself  for  a  living. 

The  absence  of  all  acquired  property,  of  all  accumulated  fortune, 
is  then,  as  we  have  said,  what  constitutes  the  proletariat ;  and  the 
necessity,  when  one  has  nothing  but  his  or  her  body,  either  to  work, 
to  beg,  to  steal,  or  to  prostitute  for  a  living,  naturally  divides  the 
proletaries  into  four  great  categories,  which  we  have  mentioned ; 
categories  in  which  they  range  themselves  according  to  their  educa- 


86  HISTORY    OF    THE 

tion,  their  character,  their  physical  and  moral  force,  the  particular 
condition  of  the  family  to  which  they  belong,  or  the  general  con 
ditions  of  the  society  which  surrounds  them  —  sometimes  by  their 
own  faults,  sometimes  from  the  faults  of  others,  often  by  accident. 


CHAPTER   II. 

ORIGIN  OF  THE  PROLETARIAT. 

WE  have  already  shown  that  the  question  of  the  working  classes 
cannot  be  logically  and  effectually  treated,  without  treating 
at  the  same  time  of  beggars,  of  thieves,  and  of  prostitutes ;  and  we 
have  also  explained  how  these  four  great  social  facts,  which  encum 
ber  all  civilized  nations,  viz.,  working-men,  the  poor,  malefactors, 
and  prostitutes,  are  the  four  branches  of  one  and  the  same  trunk, 
which  is  the  proletariat.  It  is  then,  necessarily,  with  the  proletariat 
that  we  should  commence,  to  arrive  afterward  at  the  history  of  the 
working  classes ;  and  by  so  doing  we  have  the  advantage  of  explain 
ing  the  end  by  the  beginning,  and  effects  by  their  causes. 

Nevertheless,  many,  who  will  read  this,  will  perhaps  ask  why  we 
do  not  come  at  once  to  our  ideas  of  the  organization  of  the  working 
classes,  and  why,  being  master  of  our  conclusions,  as  we  ought  to 
be,  we  laboriously  search  for  our  premises  two  or  three  thousand 
years  back,  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  instead  of  at  once  lay 
ing  hold  of,  classifying,  and  arranging  the  facts  which  we  have  before 
our  eyes ;  for  after  all,  it  is  about  her  own  working-men,  mendicants, 
thieves,  and  prostitutes,  and  not  those  of  Rome,  of  Athens,  or  of 
Argos,  that  France  is  troubled.  The  history  of  the  proletariat  may 
therefore  appear  to  some  a  digression  on  this  occasion,  and  the 
appearances  will  be  to  some  extent  with  those,  who  would  wish  to 
dispense  with  the  history  of  the  working  classes,  and  to  enter  at  once 
upon  the  data,  which  lead  to  their  organization. 

These  are  the  reasons,  which  decide  us.  It  is  not  enough  to  wish 
to  organize  the  working  classes ;  it  is  also  necessary  that  the  work- 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  8? 

ing  classes  themselves  should  wish  to  be  organized.  Above  all,  it 
is  necessary  that  they  should  recognize  that  the*  condition  of  the 
working-man  is  a  natural  and  normal  condition,  and  consequently, 
one  to  be  maintained,  ameliorated,  cherished,  and  not  destroyed ; 
that,  if  there  be  rich  and  poor,  the  rich  have  not  amassed  their  for 
tunes  at  the  expense  of  the  poor,(#)  and  that  those,  who  have  an  in- 

(#)  Our  author  starts  out  with  the  declaration  that  his  book  is  one  of  history,  and 
not  of  politics.  Yet  it  is  very  evident  that  he  writes  with  a  very  strong  political 
bias  in  favor  of  the  old  nobility,  to  which  class  the  de  before  his  patronymic  in 
dicates  that  he  claims  to  belong.  The  inexorable  logic  of  historical  facts,  forces 
him  to  contradict  all  that  he  here  says,  when  he  comes  to  treat,  in  his  fourteenth 
chapter,  of  the  Ancient  Trades'  Unions  and  their  Fall.  There,  after  speaking  of 
the  prodigalities  of  Caligula,  Claudius,  Nero,  Heliogabalus,  and  others,  he  says : 

"  Alas,  it  was  the  labor  unions,  which  had  to  pay  the  greatest  part  for  these 
feasts,  this  profusion,  these  follies !  It  was  they  (the  working  classes)  who  had 
to  support  the  emperors,  their  mistresses,  their  eunuchs,  their  minions,  their  lack 
eys,  their  lions  and  their  panthers,  their  paroquets  and  their  monkeys ;  and  if  we 
bear  in  mind  that  between  Augustus  and  Constantine  there  were  fifty-two  emperors, 
that  is  to  say,  nearly  fifty-two  prodigals,  and  that  one  of  them  alone,  who  died  at 
eighteen  years  of  age,  spent  in  a  single  day  more  than  all  the  others  together,  in 
having  the  court  of  his  palace  paved  with  all  the  diamonds,  all  the  emeralds,  all 
the  precious  stones  of  Italy,  we  can,  without  difficulty,  account  for  the  exhaustion 
of  the  Empire  in  the  fourth  century,  and  for  the  tyrannical  laws  against  the  labor 
unions,  (and  the  working  classes,)  for  which  the  people  and  the  government 
are  both  to  blame.  This  explains  how  these  tyrants,  these  fools,  these  ambitious 
men,  who  passed  away  so  quickly,  each  took  away  some  part  of  the  wealth  of  the 
people ;  how  the  most  frightful  exactions  were  practised  to  obtain  money,  how  all  the 
statues  of  the  gods,  and  even  the  household  gods  (penates)  of  Rome,  were  melted 
down  by  Nero ;  how  the  ancient  subsidies  paid  by  the  state  to  the  priests  and  the 
vestals  were  suppressed ;  how,  in  fine,  to  the  great  scandal  of  the  idolatrous  devo 
tees,  the  immense  revenues  of  the  pagan  clergy  were  confiscated  and  sold  through 
out  the  Empire  for  the  benefit  of  the  public  treasury,  which  was  the  burden  of  the 
lamentable  epistles  of  the  Prefect  Symmachus  to  the  Emperor  Valentinian  the 
Second ! " 

The  facts  and  philosophy  of  history  were  much  more  truthfully  and  clearly  stated 
byCalhoun,in  1837,  before  De  Cassagnac's  book  was  ready  for  the  printer.  Cal- 
houn  was  the  great  tribune  of  the  industrial  and  productive  classes  —  of  labor  in  all 
its  forms;  the  inflexible  opponent  of  monopolies  and  special  class  legislation  — 
of  all  taxation  by  government  that  tended  to  reduce  the  wages  of  labor,  and  increase 
the  cost  of  living.  In  his  speech  on  Abolition  petitions,  February,  1837,  he  said : 

"  I  hold,  then,  that  there  never  has  yet  existed  a  wealthy  and  civilized  society, 
in  which  one  portion  of  the  community  did  not,  in  point  of  fact,  live  on  the  labor 


88  HISTORY    OF    THE 

come  of  a  hundred  thousand  livres,  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
misfortunes  of  those,  who  die  of  hunger  ;  that  the  people,  consisting 
principally  of  the  working  classes,  have  not  been  reduced  to  the 
condition,  in  which  they  find  themselves,  by  jhe  cupidity  of  the 
great ;  and  that  the  crimes  of  priests  and  kings,  if  priests  and  kings 
have  committed  crimes,  have  not  been  to  rivet  the  chains  of  any 
one ;  that  there  are  simple,  logical,  visible  causes  for  everything  — 
for  the  evil  as  for  the  good — and  that  the  poor  have  never  had  any 
other  tyrants  than  the  imbeciles,  who  have  filled  their  hearts  with 
unjust  hatred,  and  have  thus  led  them  astray  from  making  the  most 
of  the  destiny,  which  God  has  given  them ;  that,  if  it  is  good,  moral, 
and  right  that  working-men,  as  intelligent  men  capable  of  improve 
ment,  should  have  their  ambition,  they  should  take  care  that  that 
ambition  should  not  err  in  its  object,  and  that  it  does  not  seek  to 
retake  violently  or  legally,  by  riot  or  by  universal  suffrage,  the 
wealth,  consideration,  and  authority,  which  no  one  ever  took  from 
them;  that  the  welfare  of  the  working  classes  ought  to  be  sought  in 
the  amelioration  of  the  condition,  which  is  proper  for  them,  and  not 
in  the  barren  pursuit  of  a  condition,  which  is  inappropriate  to  them  ; 
in  fine,  that  the  object  of  every  apprentice,  in  commencing  his  career, 
should  be  to  become  the  best  workman  in  the  shop,  and  not  the  first 
consul  of  a  republic. 

Thus,  before  addressing  ourselves  to  the  good  sense  of  the  work 
ing  classes,  it  seemed  to  us  logical  to  address  their  prejudices  and 
passions.  The  most  formidable  evil,  in  fact,  under  which  working- 
men  have  labored  for  the  last  forty  years,  is  their  repugnance  to 
being  only  working-men,  and  the  belief,  which  bad  historians,  bad 
publicists,  bad  revolutionary  orators  have  instilled  into  them,  that 
the  condition  of  a  hireling  is  a  degrading  and  anomalous  one,  which 
the  violence  and  avarice  of  the  great  have  for  a  long  time  imposed 

of  the  other.  Broad  and  general  as  is  this  assertion,  it  is  fully  borne  out  by  his 
tory.  This  is  not  the  proper  occasion,  but  if  it  were,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to 
trace  the  various  devices,  by  which  the  wealth  of  all  civilized  communities  has 
been  so  unequally  divided,  and  to  show  by  what  means  so  small  a  share  has  been 
allotted  to  those,  by  whose  labor  it  was  produced,  and  so  large  a  share  given  to 
the  non-producing  class.  The  devices  are  almost  innumerable,  from  the  brute 
force  and  gross  superstition  of  ancient  times,  to  the  subtle  and  artful  fiscal  contriv 
ances  of  modern." 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  89 

upon  the  people,  and  which,  so  far  from  there  being  any  morality 
in  accepting  or  profit  in  regulating,  they  should  throw  off,  cost  what 
it  may.  The  example  of  the  Constituent  Assembly  in  abolishing 
liveries,  that  of  the  Convention  in  abolishing  the  domestic  relations, 
and  all  those  souvenirs  of  popular  fraternity,  which  gave  for  the  first 
time  indiscriminately  the  name  of  a  citizen  to  the  rich  and  the  poor, 
to  the  duke  and  to  the  lackey,  and  which,  for  all  that,  really  only 
concealed  the  inequality  of  the  thing  under  the  equality  of  the 
name,  have  left  to  the  working  classes  this  movement  of  feverish 
restlessness,  which  follows  hopes  deceived  and  ambition  misled,  and 
which  is  complicated  with  a  desire  to  be  what  they  are  not,  and  dis 
gust  at  what  they  are. 

We  would  wish  therefore,  if  possible,  to  make  the  working  classes 
understand  that  they  have  no  cause  for  social  vengeance ;  that  the 
question  for  them  is  not  to  break  their  chains,  nor  escape  from 
slavery,  nor  to  punish  tyrants ;  that  their  slavery  and  oppression 
have  never  existed  except  in  melodramas,  comic  operas,  and  drink 
ing  songs;  that  history  shows  that  the  working  classes  were  formed, 
like  all  the  others,  freely  and  progressively  ;  that  in  time  they  have 
had,  like  all  other  social  facts,  their  bright  and  dark  hours,  their 
good  and  bad  years ;  but  that  their  condition,  as  that  of  all  others, 
has  been  improving  from  century  to  century ;  that  the  working 
classes  of  the  middle  ages  were  incomparably  more  happy  than  the 
working  classes  of  antiquity,  and  those  of  to-day  are  incomparably 
more  happy  than  those  of  the  middle  ages;  in  fine,  that  the  condi 
tion  of  the  working-men,  as  we  have  already  said,  is  regular,  moral, 
natural,  legitimate  ;  a  condition  which  has  arisen  of  itself,  spon 
taneously,  without  constraint  or  violence ;  a  condition,  which  has 
been  developed  in  history  according  to  appropriate  laws,  which 
had  nothing  harsh,  cruel,  or  tyrannical  in  them ;  a  condition,  which 
is  shown,  by  its  origin,  its  duration,  by  the  evidences  of  its  present 
and  the  indications  of  its  future  state,  to  be  an  essential  part  of  the 
general  system  of  human  societies,  forming  a  harmonious  note  in 
the  general  concert  of  the  wants,  griefs,  pleasures,  and  destinies 
of  all. 

This  was  our  object  in  wishing  to  write  the  history  of  the  working 
classes.  The  difficulty  of  their  association  is,  as  we  think,  less  per 
haps  in  the  discovery  of  a  logical  and  apposite  mechanism  than  in 
7 


9O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

the  obstacles  to  every  simple,  natural,  and  peaceful  solution  of  the 
great  social  difficulties  of  our  times,  caused  by  the  false  political 
ideas,  the  ridiculous  learning,  and  the  pseudo-Lacedemonian  frater 
nity,  with  which  the  working  classes  have  been  infected  for  the  last 
forty  years.  One  will  never  answer  satisfactorily  all  the  objections 
of  those,  who  think  themselves  interested  in  making  them,  and 
whatever  he  may  say,  he  will  with  difficulty  persuade  a  working- 
man,  who  aspires  to  be  a  triumvir,  to  become  some  day  a  boss 
mechanic.  It  is  not  in  a  few  years  that  the  political  prejudices  of 
the  working  classes  can  be  reformed ;  but  history  applied  to  their 
social  condition  seemed  to  us  one  of  the  surest  and  shortest  ways  to 
its  accomplishment. 

The  proletariat  may,  perhaps,  be  compared  to  a  river,  which 
always  has  its  principal  and  original  source  and  its  tributaries.  The 
difficulty  in  its  history  consists  in  separating  its  accidental  and  rela 
tive  from  its  general  and  absolute  causes,  or,  as  we  may  say,  its 
tributaries  from  its  head-springs. 

The  first  general,  universal,  absolute  cause,  the  original  source 
of  pauperism,  is  the  emancipation  of  slaves.  Pauperism  and  its 
four  subdivisions  —  hirelings,  (that  is  to  say,  those  who  work  for 
wages,)  mendicants,  thieves,  and  prostitutes  —  cannot  exist  in  a  slave 
country,  unless  emancipation  has  been  there  already  begun.  It  is 
not  difficult  to  comprehend  how  the  want  of  food  and  clothing  — 
the  necessity  of  living,  in  a  word  —  being  the  motive  that  impels 
the  hireling  to  work,  the  mendicant  to  beg,  the  thief  to  steal,  and 
girls  of  the  town  to  prostitution  —  all  to  do  what  they  do  with  a 
view  to  a  necessary  gain — these  four  conditions  could  not  exist 
under  the  slave  system,  under  which  all  have  naturally  the  neces 
saries  of  life  ;  the  master  because  he  is  master,  and  the  slave  because 
he  is  a  slave.  Thus  there  are  neither  hirelings,  nor  mendicants, 
nor  thieves,  nor  prostitutes  among  the  Arab  tribes  who  inhabit  the 
desert,  because  slavery  is  there  almost  in  its  primitive  entirety. 

We  hope  hereafter  to  say  with  accuracy  when  that  emancipation 
of  slaves,  which  produced  the  first  proletaries,  commenced  among 
the  people  of  the  West ;  but  first  we  must  notice  two  important  facts 
regarding  this  emancipation. 

The  first  is, -that  before  the  Christian  era  there  was  no  instance 
of  a  systematic  emancipation,  in  mass,  among  the  ancients,  in  the 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  9! 

name  of  any  philosophic  or  philanthropic  system,  and  that  all  eman 
cipations  among  them  were  accidental  and  individual.  We  may 
even  say  that  all  the  pagan  philosophers,  without  exception,  were 
unanimous  in  considering  slavery  as  a  legitimate  and  normal  con 
dition  of  society,  from  Aristotle,  who  called  children  "the  ani 
mated  instruments  of  their  parents,"  to  Plato,  who  cites  in  his  trea 
tise  on  law  two  verses  of  Homer,  from  the  i  yth  book  of  the  Odys 
sey,  in  which  it  is  said  that  "slaves  have  only  the  half  of  a  human 
soul. ' '  There  is  perhaps  only  one  exception  to  this  unanimity  of  the 
ancient  philosophers  as  to  the  legitimacy  of  slavery ;  and  even  that 
exception  is  taken  from  the  history  of  the  Jews,  who  had  in  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets  the  germ  and  rudiments  of  the  Gospel.  Flavius 
Josephus  relates  in  the  i3th  book  of  his  ancient  history  of  the  Jews, 
that  there  were  in  his  nation  three  great  philosophic  sects  outside  of 
the  precise  text  of  the  Law,  the  Pharisees,  the  Sadducees,  and  the 
Essenians ; l  and  he  gives  many  details  in  regard  to  this  last-men 
tioned  sect  in  his  i8th  book,  where  he  says  the  Essenians  recog 
nized  a  community  of  goods,  that  they  did  their  own  work,  and  had 
no  servants,  because  they  considered  men  as  being  equal  by  nature  ; 2 
but  the  Essenians  in  antiquity  were  only  a  small  obscure  sect,  num 
bering  scarcely  four  thousand,  toward  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Au 
gustus,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  dawn  of  Christianity,  and  the  doctrine 
of  equality  was  mixed  up  with  other  dogmas,  which  injured  them 
greatly  in  the  opinion  of  the  Jews,  as,  for  example,  the  doctrine  of 
celibacy. 

We  state  rapidly  the  principal  opinions  of  the  ancient  philos 
ophers  in  regard  to  slavery,  (intending  to  recur  to  the  subject  here 
after,)  only  to  explain  how,  public  opinion  never  having  been  ex 
cited  by  any  precept  or  doctrine  whatever  in  favor  of  slaves,  there 
was  never  in  antiquity  any  systematic  emancipations  in  mass.  In 
fact,  we  do  not  wish  to  give  the  name  of  systematic  emancipation  to 
the  enrolment  of  slaves  in  the  time  of  civil  troubles. 

The  second  fact,  of  which  we  have  spoken,  and  which  is  a  con 
sequence  of  the  first,  is  that  in  ancient  times  there  was  never  any 
of  those  trying  times  among  the  working  classes  such  as  we  have 

1  See  Flav.  Joseph.,  Antiq.  Hsebr.,  lib.  xiii.,  cap.  x. 

2  Ibid.,  lib.  xviii.,  cap.  ii. 


92 


HISTORY    OF    THE 


in  our  manufacturing  cities,  nor  any  such  distress  among  the  poor 
as  now  in  certain  localities  in  France  at  the  approach  of  winter, 
and  in  Ireland  at  all  seasons.  It  is  easy  to  conceive  how  the  indi 
vidual  cases  of  emancipation  turning  out  proletaries  only  drop  by 
drop,  so  to  speak,  the  soil  of  ancient  society  had  time  to  absorb 
before  being  overrun  and  wasted  by  them.  The  free  working  popu 
lation  before  the  Christian  era  was  very  small,  and  the  thirty-five 
labor  unions  enumerated  in  the  law  of  Constantine  of  the  year  337, 
contained  in  the  8th  book  of  the  Code  of  Theodosius,  had  their 
work  done  by  slaves.1 

The  number  of  proletaries  was  therefore  very  limited  before  the 
Christian  era,  and  even  in  the  three  following  centuries,  because  of 
the  small  number  of  freedmen  that  emancipation  had  cast  upon 
society. 

First,  as  to  the  working-men,  they  were,  as  we  have  said,  nearly 
all  slaves.  The  treasury,  or,  as  we  would  say,  the  domain,  had  slaves 
of  all  trades,  by  whom  the  public  works  were  executed.  Con 
tractors  even  made  large  fortunes  by  the  daily  hire  of  workmen, 
and  the  labor  unions  themselves  turned  the  privileges  they  obtained 
to  the  profit  of  a  few,  and  had  their  shops  filled  with  slave  work 
men. 

As  to  mendicants,  they  were  very  rare ;  so  rare  that  there  is  not  one 
example  in  all  antiquity  of  a  city,  which  founded  a  hospital  to  feed 
the  poor  or  to  cure  the  needy  sick.  A  law  of  the  Emperor  Justinian 
of  the  year  530,  given  in  the  code,  is  on  this  point  a  very  valuable 
document,  inasmuch  as  it  enumerates  all  the  public  expenditures  of 
the  municipalities,  and  it  makes  not  the  slightest  mention  of  a  hos 
pital  or  house  of  refuge  of  any  kind,  either  for  mendicants,  or  for 
the  infirm,  or  for  wounded  or  sick  laborers.2  We  must  not  lose 
sight  of  the  fact  that,  in  the  organization  of  ancient  society,  every 
owner  of  slaves  had  in  his  own  house  an  infirmary  for  taking  care 
of,  and  a  prison  for  punishing  them.  Now,  as  emancipation  did 
not  entirely  destroy  all  ties  between  the  slave  and  the  master,  and 
the  latter  had  still  a  right  to  the  inheritance  of  the  freedman,  so 
the  freedman  could  on  occasion  have  recourse  to  the  munificence 

1This  appears  from  many  passages  relating  to  the  Roman  labor  unions.  See 
Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  7. 

2  See  Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  i.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  26. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  93 

of  his  old  master,  and  ask  it  with  confidence,  either  in  case  of  sick 
ness  or  of  destitution.  All  mendicants  or  infirm  laborers,  proceed 
ing  necessarily  from  the  emancipation  of  slaves,  returned  to  the  care 
of  individuals,  and  did  not  necessitate  the  system  of  public  provi 
sion  of  modern  societies,  of  the  formation  of  which  we  will  here 
after  give  an  account.  We  find  that  private  prisons  were  abolished 
in  the  Empire  of  the  East  by  a  law  of  Theodosius  and  Arcadius  of 
the  year  388,  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib  ix.,  tit.  xi.,  lex  unica,)  and  in  the 
Empire  of  the  West  by  a  law  of  Justinian  of  the  year  529,  (see 
Cod.  Just.,  lib.  i.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  26,)  which  authorizes  us  to  believe 
that  the  private  infirmaries  lasted  as  long. 

Thieves  were  also  very  rare  in  ancient  society ;  but  on  this  point 
it  is  necessary  to  make  a  distinction.  Highway  robbers,  those  who 
lived  in  caves,  bandits,  men  commanding  troops  more  or  less  con 
siderable  and  taking  the  field,  were  very  numerous,  as  were  cor 
sairs  and  sea-rovers;  but  the  profession  of  a  bandit  or  of  a  corsair, 
which  requires  skill,  courage,  and  some  fortune,  was  never  considered 
infamous  by  the  ancients.  Thucydides,  lib.  i.,  cap.  5,  informs  us 
of  the  high  estimation,  in  which  the  profession  of  corsair  was  held 
by  the  ancient  Greeks ;  and  even  in  his  time,  Polybius  informs  us, 
that  Teuta,  Queen  of  Illyria,  replied  to  the  Roman  ambassadors 
that  the  laws  made  by  the  kings,  her  predecessors,  never  forbade 
piracy,  (Polyb.  Hist.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  8,)  but  the  contrary,  although 
it  was  recruited  from  among  the  runaway  slaves  and  adventurers  of 
all  parts  of  Europe.  The  thieves,  who  were  scarce  and  almost 
unknown,  were  those  of  the  cities,  pickpockets,  sharpers,  la  haute 
et  la  basse  pegre,  to  use  the  low  vocabulary  of  the  police;  the  pick 
locks,  the  handkerchief -stealers;  in  fine,  all  those  mean  scamps, 
who  hide  in  our  cities,  instead  of  arming  themselves  like  the  brave 
bandits,  who  boldly  confronted  a  Roman  army  commanded  by 
Pompey. 

Prostitutes,  who  are  the  fourth  and  lowest  degree  of  the  prole 
tariat,  had  not  in  ancient  society  the  frightful  development  they 
have  attained  in  modern  society.  That  is  easily  understood,  when 
we  bear  in  mind  that  every  slave  woman  could  be  a  concubine,  and 
that  the  passions  of  the  master  had  with  them  enough,  wherewith  to 
be  satisfied.  Besides,  we  see  in  the  comedies  of  Plautus  and  Terence 
that  the  bad  places  were  kept  by  slave-merchants,  which  shows  how 


1    L*s 

St  +^<*L   K<Uf  _ 
I  i         V 


94  HISTORY    OF    THE 


limited  the  number  of  free  prostitutes  must  have  been.  There  were 
some,  however  ;  but  these  were  pretty  freedwomen,  such  as  Pom- 
pey's  Flora,  the  Lesbia  of  Catullus,  the  Delia  of  Tigranes,  the 
Corinne,  Lydia,  and  Chloe  of  Horace;  the  Marion  de  1'Ormes  of 
their  time,  at  whose  houses  fashionable  young  idlers  and  poets  met 
to  make  love.  Y- 

There  remains  a  great  question,  new  and  difficult  :  to  ascertain 
what  is  the  origin  of  that  universal  slavery,  which  is  invariably 
found  in  the  commencement  of  all  nations,  and  how  those  primi 
tive  slaves,  who  are  the  ancestors  of  the  proletaries,  found  them 
selves  in  slavery.  On  that  question  depends  this  other,  viz.  :  Is 
slavery  of  violent  or  peaceful  origin,  and  have  the  proletaries  been 
unjustly  despoiled,  in  the  persons  of  the  primitive  slaves,  their  fore 
fathers,  of  the  social  advantages  possessed  by  the  rich  ? 

Without  wishing  to  give  in  this  chapter  to  this  question  all  the  im 
portance  and  all  the  development,  which  it  would  perhaps  demand, 
we  can  say  that  proofs  abound  to  solve  it  negatively.  Thus  innu 
merable  proofs  concur  to  establish  that  slavery  was  not  originally 
instituted,  established,  created,  voluntarily  and  of  set  purpose,  as, 
for  example,  the  communes  of  the  middle  ages  were  established  and 
instituted.  In  fine,  everything  leads  in  the  most  positive  manner  to 
the  belief  that  slavery  had  no  other  commencement  than  the  com 
mencement  of  the  human  family,  of  which  it  constituted  an  inte 
grant  part  ;  of  which  it  formed  a  natural,  essential,  and  constitutive 
law.  That  being  so  ;  that  is  to  say,  slavery  not  having  been  estab 
lished  all  at  once,  much  less  did  it  commence  violently,  by  reducing 
to  slavery  men  originally  free  and  the  equals  of  other  men.  We  are 
not  ignorant  that  there  is  an  axiom  at  the  present  day  generally  re 
ceived  among  civilized  nations,  which  says  that  all  men  are  naturally 
equal.  That  may  be  true  morally,  but  it  is  false  historically  ;  and  be 
sides,  this  axiom,  which  is  of  Christian  origin,  proves  just  the  contrary 
of  what  is  sought  to  be  proved  by  it.  For  when  St.  Paul,  in  his  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians,  said,  (ch.  iii.,  v.28,)  "  there  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek, 
there  is  neither  bond  nor  free,  there  is  neither  male  nor  female,  for 
ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus,"  he  evidently  preached  this  language 
of  his  Divine  Master  to,  show  how  noble,  liberal,  and  civilizing  this 
doctrine  was,  which  called  to  it  all  human  infirmities,  which  raised  the 
humble  and  exalted  the  low,  and  before  which  there  was  no  longer 


WORKING    A-ND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  95 

what  had  up  to  that  time  been  seen  in  the  world,  that  is,  societies 
filled  with  contrasts:  the  Jews,  who  had  the  word  of  God,  the 
Greeks  who  had  not;  slaves,  who  were  sold,  and  free  men,  who 
bought  them ;  men,  who  had  authority  in  the  family,  women,  who 
were  crowded  in  harems,  repined,  obeyed,  and  were  silent. 

Christianity  has  positively  no  social  signification  or  progressive 
value,  except  this,  that  it  brought  to  society  the  doctrine  of  equality, 
which  before  had  never  existed  anywhere,  neither  among  the  Jews, 
nor  among  the  Gentiles. 

In  studying  carefully  the  books  and  primitive  writings  in  refer 
ence  to  slavery,  we  very  soon  find  that  it  arose  in  the  family.  In 
all  the  books  and  in  all  the  old  manuscripts  the  fathers  of  families 
had  an  absolute  right  of  life  and  death  over  their  children.  This 
requires  to  be  explained  more  at  length. 


CHAPTER   III. 

OF    THE    ORIGIN    OF   SLAVERY. 

BY  a  long  and  laborious  route,  we  have  reached  a  result,  which 
may  appear  singular,  but  of  which  we  will  submit  the  proofs 
to  the  reader.  Taking  history  at  its  sources,  before  they  have  been 
stirred  and  muddled  by  theories,  we  have  found  numerous,  deep, 
conspicuous,  and  unexceptionable  traces  of  two  classes  of  men,  (we 
do  not  say  of  two  races,)  who  have  universally  in  all  countries 
abounded  in  the  commencement  of  all  societies.  One  of  these 
classes  were  MASTERS,  the  other  SLAVES.  The  first  own,  the  second 
are  owned.  This  fact,  we  say,  is  universal.  There  were  masters 
and  slaves  among  the  Hebrews ; l  among  the  Greeks  ; 2  among  the 
Romans  j8  among  the  Germans  ;*  among  the  Gauls  ;5  in  France  in  the 

1  See  legislation  of  Moses,  concerning  slaves,  and  especially  Leviticus,  ch.  xxv., 
v.  40,  41,  44,  47,  48. 

8  See  numerous  passages  in  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  especially  the  Iliad,  book 
xii.,  where  Achilles  says  to  Lycaon,  "  I  have  taken  and  sold  many  living ;  "  and 
in  the  Odyssey,  book  xxii.,  where  Euriclea,  governess  of  the  slaves  of  Ulysses, 
says  to  him,  "  You  have  in  your  house  fifty  slave  women,  whom  I  have  taught 
to  work,  to  spin,  and  to  endure  servitude." 

3  See,  among  a  thousand  other  proofs,  tit.  v.,  lib.  I,  of  the  Institutes  of  Justin 
ian,  de  Libertinis. 

4  Tacitus,  de  Moribus  Germanorum.  5  See  Ccesar's  Commentaries. 


g6  HISTORY    OF    THE 

twelfth  century  ; ]  in  Prussia  in  1750  ; 2  they  exist  still  in  the  United 
States  of  America ;  in  all  Mohammedan  countries,  and  in  all  the 
kingdoms  and  empires  of  India. 

We  will  not  longer  insist  on  this  great  historic  fact,  the  proofs  of 
which  are  everywhere,  in  all  books,  in  the  poets,  historians,  in  the 
codes,  before  our  eyes.  We  proceed  to  the  examination  of  their 
character. 

First,  it  is  clear  from  all  the  concurring  testimony,  that  this  fact 
is  very  ancient ;  so  ancient  that  we  can  nowhere  find  its  commence 
ment.  When  the  institutions  of  all  peoples  began,  slavery  was 
already  established.  Moses  founded  the  institutions  of  the  Hebrews, 
and  slavery  is  found  in  the  books  of  Moses.  Homer  was  many 
centuries  anterior  to  the  historic  times  of  Greece,  and  slavery  is 
found  in  the  books  of  Homer.  The  Twelve  Tables  were  the  basis 
of  Roman  institutions,  and  Romulus,  long  anterior  to  the  Twelve 
Tables,  opened  at  Rome  an  asylum  for  the  fugitive  slaves  at  Latium.8 
The  Salic  law,  the  law  of  the  Saxons,  of  the  Thuringians,  of  the 
Germans,  and  of  the  Angles,  are  the  points  of  departure  of  the  insti 
tutions  of  all  modern  peoples,  and  slavery  is  found  in  all  the  codes 
of  the  invasion.4  We  add  another  very  important  consideration, 
which  is,  that  in  all  the  legislative,  poetic,  and  historical  monu 
ments  which  we  have  mentioned,  slavery  is  not  instituted  for  the 
first  time,  but  is  mentioned  as  a  fact,  existing,  known,  accepted, 
fixed.  Neither  Moses,  nor  Homer,  nor  the  Twelve  Tables,  nor  the 
laws  of  the  invasion  founded  slavery.  They  mention  and  regulate 
it.  It  was,  before  they  existed. 

Next  —  and  what  we  are  about  to  say  is,  as  it  were,  the  conse 
quence  of  what  we  have  said  —  it  nowhere  appears  by  the  study  of 
all  traditions  that  slavery  was  ever  instituted,  founded,  created,  or 
that  it  was  enacted  by  statute,  to  use  the  expression  of  the  jurists. 
The  statute  law  took  hold  of  the  fact  of  slavery,  as  it  did  of  all 
other  social  facts,  when  it  regulated  society ;  it  has  taken  it,  in  its 
turn,  under  its  control ;  it  has  shaped  and  defined  it,  and  so  entirely 
taken  it  under  its  power,  that  when  the  institutions  of  nations  began, 

1  See  the  Assises  de  Jerusalem,  Court  of  Burghers,  art.  32,  copied  from  the 
manuscript  of  Venise,  in' the  Royal  Library. 

2  See  General  Code  of  the  Prussian  States,  published  in  1794,  vol.  ii.,  part  2, 
tit.  v.,  art.  196-197. 

1  Plutarch,  Romulus.  *  See  the  salic,  riparian,  and  other  laws,  passim. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  $/ 

slavery  had  become  a  part  of  the  statute  law  ;  but  it  had  a  proper, 
and,  so  to  speak,  personal  existence,  before  falling  under  the  action 
of  the  civil  and  political  law ;  and  it  is  this  primitive  existence,  of 
which  we  say  that  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been  the  handiwork 
of  man.  More  than  that :  Returning  hereafter  to  the  Hebrew, 
Greek,  Roman,  and  barbarian  legislation,  which  mention  slavery 
and  evidently  do  not  create  it,  we  believe  we  can  say  that  we  have 
in  reserve  irresistible  mathematical  considerations,  which  will  be 
produced  in  their  place,  and  which  will  establish  in  a  manner  that 
admits  of  no  doubt,  not  only  tbiat  slavery,  in  Leviticus,  in  the  Iliad, 
in  the  laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  and  in  the  codes  of  the  invasion, 
was  not  a  thing  actually  or  even  newly  created ;  but  that  it  was  an 
old  thing,  a  decrepit  thing,  a  wornout  thing,  a  decaying  thing, 
already  past  the  half  of  its  time,  halfway  to  a  great  social  metamor 
phosis  and  to  its  own  annihilation  ;  so  that,  far  from  owing  its 
existence  to  human  institutions,  slavery  was  already  greatly  shaken, 
and  declining,  when  the  most  ancient  institutions  saw  the  light. 

If  the  language  of  the  politics  of  these  latter  years  had  not  given 
a  reactionary  and  ridiculous  signification  to  the  words  divine  right, 
we  would  readily  say  that  slavery  is  of  divine  right;  but  we  fear  to 
be  misunderstood.  We  prefer  to  use  other  words,  and  to  say  that, 
from  all  traditional  appearances  and  all  historic  realities,  slavery 
universally  presents  itself,  in  the  primitive  times  of  all  nations,  as  a 
fact,  spontaneous,  natural,  autochthon  ;  a  fact  which  is  connate  with 
nations,  without  their  direct  assent  or  deliberate  concurrence ;  a 
principle  mixed  by  God  himself  with  the  thousand  principles  of 
human  society  ;  a  kind  of  absolute  evil,  wounding  the  logic  of  civil 
ization,  destined  to  be  a  relative  good,  and  to  satisfy  the  primordial 
instincts  of  incipient  society ;  a  thing,  in  fine,  which  has  the  appear 
ance  of  a  monstrosity,  but  which  finds  its  natural  explanation  and 
legitimate  place  in  given  places  and  times  of  history.  This  is  the 
sense,  in  which  we  would  have  said,  that  slavery  was  of  divine  right ; 
only  to  make  it  understood  that  it  was  anterior  to  human  institu 
tions  —  that  it  came  from  higher  and  farther  back. 

Nevertheless,  though  the  proofs,  which  we  have  already  deduced, 
must  necessarily  have  some  value  in  the  eyes  of  every  man  of  intel 
ligence  and  good  faith,  it  is  not  our  intention  to  rest  only  upon 
them,  in  what  we  have  said  of  the  spontaneous,  and  in  some  sort 


98  HISTORY    OF    THE 

providential  nature  of  slavery.  This  opinion,  which  as  yet  we  have 
only  suggested,  will  hereafter  be  justified  ;  at  least,  we  shall  attempt 
it.  Our  arguments  hitherto  offered  are  of  that  class  called  negative 
in  the  exact  sciences ;  that  is  to  say,  that  we,  proposing  to  establish 
a  certain  general  conviction,  produced  in  us*  by  a  comparison  of  a 
great  number  of  facts,  viz.,  that  slavery  is  a  spontaneous  and  primi 
tive  element  of  society,  have  set  ourselves  first  to  show  that  man  did 
not  establish  it  of  deliberate  purpose,  and  that  it  was  not  the  result 
of  human  institutions.  It  remains  for  us  to  give  the  positive  and 
direct  arguments ;  that  is  to  say,  to  show  by  what  natural,  simple, 
logical,  successive  process,  slavery  was  found  already  established  at 
the  same  time  that  all  peoples  were  formed. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  thought  at  first  sight  that  we  take  hold  of  our 
subject  very  far  back.  We  take  it  at  its  root,  at  its  first  rudiment, 
at  its  embryo,  at  the  mathematical  point  whence  all  its  lines  start. 
We  have  already  forewarned  the  reader  of  the  historic  novelties, 
upon  which  we  venture.  This  is  one  of  them,  an  important  one, 
which  perhaps  will  furnish  a  key  to  many  problems  hitherto  obscure, 
and  which  merits  at  least  the  good-will,  which  every  just  man  accords 
to  every  earnest  man.  See  then  what,  as  we  believe,  was  the  origin 
of  slavery. 

We  cannot  enter  directly  upon  the  history  of  slavery,  because 
slavery  is  the  negation  of  liberty  and  of  property,  and  a  negation 
cannot  exist  of  itself.  It  becomes  necessary,  then,  to  turn  to  liberty 
and  property,  the  absence  of  which  constitutes  slavery,  just  as  the 
absence  of  light  constitutes  darkness  ;  but  the  strength  of  our  theory 
will  lose  nothing,  because  we  will  know  certainly  the  slaves  by  know 
ing  the  masters.  Whence,  then,  came  the  masters  ? 

After  much  thought,  and  especially  much  reading,  undertaken  in 
view  of  the  problem  we  attempt  to  solve,  it  seems  to  us  that  primi 
tively,  and  going  back  to  the  first  glimmerings  of  historic  times,  the 
idea  of  master  and  the  idea  of  father  are  entirely  confounded.  In 
general,  at  the  commencement  of  the  formation  of  all  peoples,  the 
lather  is  master,  absolute  master.  We  should  say,  what  is  very  im 
portant,  that  it  was  not  sufficient  to  be  father  according  to  the  flesh ; 
certain  conditions  of  tradition,  duration,  family,  and  ancestors  were 
also  required.  In  Homer,  the  fathers,  who  are  masters,  are  all  sons 
of  the  gods.  They  are  called  divine,  sons  of  the  gods,  nurselings  of 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  99 

the  gods.1  More  than  that:  the  great  families  ranked  according  to 
the  order  of  the  gods,  their  ancestors.  In  the  twentieth  book  of  the 
Iliad,  Apollo  says  to  y£neas  that  he  was  much  above  Achilles,  be 
cause  Achilles  was  born  of  Thetis,  and  he  was  the  son  of  Venus. 
In  the  twenty-first,  Achilles  says  to  Asteropaeus  that  he  was  very 
bold,  being  only  the  son  of  a  river,  to  come  and  attack  him,  who 
descended  from  Jupiter ; 2  and  he  adds  that  there  was  as  much  dis 
tance  between  them  as  between  their  ancestors.  The  same  thing  is 
remarked  in  the  Latin  traditions.  We  know  that  Romulus  was  the 
son  of  Mars,  and  Plutarch  says  that  the  first  master  of  the  house  of 
the  Fabii  passed  for  the  son  of  Hercules.3  In  the  life  of  Caesar, 
Suetonius  relates  that  Caesar,  pronouncing  the  funeral  eulogy  of  his 
aunt  Julia,  recalls  the  origin  of  his  family,  which  descended  from 
Jupiter  by  Venus,  the  mother  of  ^Eneas.4  Behold  why  he  was  called 
divine,  like  Achilles,  that  is  to  say,  son  of  Jupiter,  which  is  the  true 
meaning  of  divus  and  of  dios*  Before  flattery  interposed  to  trouble 
the  hierarchy,  only  the  members  of  the  Julian  family  at  Rome  were 
called  divine. 

There  was  still  another  name,  by  which  the  ancient  Latin  families, 
who  were  descended  from  the  gods,  were  designated,  that  of  plus, 
which  has  been  wrongly  translated  pious.  Virgil  constantly  calls 
^£neas//kr,  that  is  to  say,  son  of  Jupiter,  a  signification,  which  many 
successive  translators  have  generally  ignored. 

The  proofs  of  what  we  say  are  easy  and  conclusive,  and  we  take 
some  pleasure  in  presenting  them,  because  it  is  a  question  of  a  very 
curious  historical  point,  and  at  the  same  time  of  a  very  piquant 
literary  point. 

First,  Suetonius  relates  that,  after  the  victories  of  Tiberius  in  Illy- 
ria>  the  senate  wished  to  give  him  immediately  the  surname  of  Pius* 
which  should  have  a  signification  more  honorable  than  that  of 
Augustus,  which  was  his  signature,  and  hereditary  in  the  Claudian 
house.* 

1  Iliad,  lib.  i.,  v.  7 ;  lib.  ii.,  v.  98;  lib.  xxii.,  v.  320;  lib.  xxiii.,  v.  293. 

2  Iliad,  lib.  xxi.,  v.  186-7. 

3  Plutarch,  Fab.  Maximus. 

4  Suet.  Tranq.,  Jul.  Caesar,  cap.  vi. 

5 Caesar,  divi  genus.   (/Eneid,  lib.  vi.,  v.  793.) 
6  Suet.  Tranq.,  Tiber.  Nero,  cap.  xx. 
TSuet.  Tranq.,  Tiber.  Nero,  cap.  xxx. 


IOO  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Next,  Virgil  habitually  alternates  the  surname  of  Pius  with  many 
others,  which  signify  sons  of  gods.  In  the  third  and  fifth  books  of 
the  ^Eneid,  he  calls  Anchises  and  ^neas  sons  of  a  goddess.1  In 
the  sixth  book,  Aeneas  himself  tells  the  sibyl  that  he  is  son  of  Jupi 
ter;3  in  the  tenth  book  he  is  spoken  of  as  of  race  divine*  On  the 
other  hand,  the  word  pius  is  found  explained  in  the  same  book, 
where  Juno,  after  having  said  that  it  would  be  a  grievous  neces 
sity,  if  Turnus  .must  shed  his  pious  blood,  adds,  he  is  of  our  race.* 
Finally,  there  are  three  passages,  one  in  Tertullian,  another  in 
Papinianus,  and  a  third  in  the  Pandects,  which  leave  no  sort  of 
doubt  relative  to  the  signification  of  pius.  In  these  three  passages, 
the  question  is  of  a  word  derived  from  pius —  of  the  wordpiefas — 
which  there  serves  to  designate  the  parental  power,  that  is  to  say, 
the  power  attached  to  a  descent  from  ancestors.  "  Piety,"  says  Ter 
tullian,  "is  sweeter  than  paternity. "  5  The  passage  of  Papinianus 
is  still  more  explicit,  but  the  difficulty  of  translating  it  exactly  in 
French  (or  English)  words  forces  us  to  give  it  in  the  original  in  a 
note.6  Finally,  see  the  passage  in  the  Pandects,  which  removes  all 
doubt:  "The  parental  power  consists  in  PIETY."' 

Thus  it  is  evident,  both  from  the  meaning  that  the  different  pas 
sages  of  Virgil  give  to  the  word  pius,  and  from  the  strict  significa 
tion  of  pi 'etas,  that //VAT  designates  the  relations  of  filiation,  and  in 
the  special  case  of  its  application  to  yEneas  it  means  son  of  Jupiter, 
as  does  DIVUS,  of  which  we  have  shown  that  DIVI  GENUS  was  the 
paraphrase. 

1^Eneid,  lib.  iii.,  v.  374.     Ibid.,  lib.  v.,  v.  383. 

2  Ibid.,  lib.  vi.,  v.  123. 

3  Ibid.,  lib.  x.,  v.  228. 
«Ibid.,  lib.  x.,  v.  618. 

5  Gratius  nomen  est  pietatis  quam  potestatis.  We  have  translated  potestatis  by 
paternity,  because  that  is  the  sense  indicated,  first,  by  the  very  phrase  of  Tertullian, 
and,  next,  by  the  passage  which  follows  potestatis,  and  which  is,  etiam  familia. 
magis patresquam  domini  vocantur.  (Tertull.,  Apologet.,  cap.  xxxiv.) 

6Divus  Trajanus  filium,  quern  pater  male  contra  pietatem  afficiebat,  coegit  eman- 
cipare ;  quo  postea  defuncto,  pater  ut  manumisso  bonorum  possessionem  sibi  com- 
petere  dicebat.  Sed  concilio  Neratii  Prisci  et  Aristonis  ei  propter  necessitatem 
solvenda:  pietatis  denegata  est.  (Papinian.  Quaestion.,  lib.  xi.,  lex  ult.) 

And  that  nothing  may  be  wanting  as  to  the  meaning  of  "  solvendae  pietatis," 
we  note  that  Cujas  comments  on  these  words  as  follows:  Quia  dissofaerat  pcttriam 
potestatem  :  because  it  would  abolish  the  parental  power.  (Cujas  in  lib.  xi.,  qucest., 
Papinian.  Commentar.) 

7  Patria  potestas  in  pietate  consistit.   (Digest.,  lib.  xlviii.,  lib.  ix.,  leg.  v.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  IOI 

We  have  said  that  the  comparison  of  a  great  amount  of  testimony 
leads  us  to  think  that,  in  the  primitive  times  of  all  people,  the  idea 
of  authority  is  intimately  connected  with  the  id,ea  o£  paternity,  and 
we  have  added  that  this  did  not  apply  to  eypry  -paternity,  bat-  only 
to  that  connected  with  a  certain  series  o£ divine  -aiiGeetojrs,  *  What  is- 
the  meaning  of  this  word  divine  ?  We  know**  riot*  -  Perhaps'  it  sign*-' 
fies  master,  and  was  given  to  the  primitive  chiefs  of  families,  pre 
cisely  because  they  were  powerful.  In  the  present  state  of  histor 
ical  studies,  there  is  something  mysterious  in  this ;  but  what  great 
question  has  not  its  mysteries?  It  appears  certain,  moreover,  that 
the  greater  part  of  the  facts  relative  to  the  ancient  family  were  regu 
lated  by  religious  dogmas.  There  is  an  example  of  this  in  the  right 
of  primogeniture,  which  already  existed  among  the  great  families  of 
Greece  from  the  time  of  Homer.  Thus,  in  the  fifteenth  book  of  the 
Iliad,  Iris  says  to  Neptune,  "  You  know  that  the  Furies  are  favorable 
to  the  first-born. " l  So,  also,  in  the  sixth  book  of  the  Odyssey,  Nau- 
sicaa  says  to  Ulysses  that  "guests  and  the  poor  are  under  the  pro 
tection  of  Jupiter. ' ' 2  When  we  come  to  treat  of  the  poor,  perhaps 
we  will  show  that  Jupiter  was  favorable  to  them,  precisely  for  the 
reason  that  he  was  the  distant  ancestor  of  the  great  families,  with 
whom  travelling  guests  and  the  poor  found  refuge. 

Moreover,  there  is  nothing  strange  in  that  the  ancient  family  should 
lean  upon  mystic  traditions  and  religious  dogmas.  The  modern, 
that  is  to  say,  the  Christian  family  has  analogous  bases  in  another 
order  of  ideas.  When  Jesus  Christ  said  to  the  multitude  which  fol 
lowed  Him  beyond  the  Jordan,  that  He  had  abolished  divorces,  He 
gave  no  other  reason  except  that  God  so  willed  it;3  and  when  St.  Paul 
wrote  to  the  churches  of  Asia  Minor  that  the  domestic  relations  were 
thereafter  modified,  that  the  wife  and  the  son  were  no  longer  sub 
ject  to  the  father  of  the  family,  he  gave  no  other  authority  for  this 
doctrine  —  then  so  strange  —  but  that  of  his  Divine  Master  :  "  You 
are  all  equal  before  God."  * 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause  —  hitherto  unknown,  and 

1  Iliad,  lib.  xv.,  v.  204. 

2Odyss.,  lib.  vi.,  v.  207,  208. 

3  What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together,  let  not  man  put  asunder.  (Matt. 
xix.  6.) 

*Omnes  enim  vos  unum  estis  in  Christo  Jesu:  for  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus. 
(Galatians  iii.  28.) 


IO2  HISTORY    OF    THE 

which  history  will  perhaps  some  day  discover  —  why  certain  ancient 
great  families  were  called  divine,  it  is  certain  that  the  chiefs  —  the 
fathers  —  in  .those?  families  had  absolute  power,  and  that  they  pos 
sessed  that  pavvex;»hy;>yktue  of  their  character,  as  fathers. 
•t  : The  grave -question,  which  occupies  us,  now*  enters  upon  historic 
times,  arid- we ' proceed, -surrounded  by  the  most  precise  and  clear 
proofs. 

The  absolute  powers  of  fathers  of  families  is  a  universal  fact  of 
primitive  history,  which  has  left  its  traces  everywhere.  The  evi 
dences  are  at  hand,  in  the  Bible,  in  the  Greek  tragedies,  in  the  Ro 
man  legislation,  in  Asiatic  traditions.  We  cannot  doubt  that  in  an 
cient  times  this  power  was  unlimited.  The  pagans,  to  give  the  high 
est  idea  of  the  power  of  Jupiter,  called  him  the  Father  of  the  Gods.1 
It  is  because  the  parental  power  is  a  universal  and  human  fact  that 
the  Jews  and  Greeks  have  both  named  God  the  Omnipotent  Father. 
The  parental  power  was  primitively  so  extended  that  it  admitted  of 
no  other,  and  completely  absorbed  the  existence  of  wife  and  chil 
dren.  The  effect  of  civilization  has  been  to  diminish  it,  and  almost 
to  equalize  the  father  with  the  other  members  of  the  family.  This 
is  what  all  legislation  shows,  when  studied  in  this  point  of  view. 

In  the  time  of  the  Patriarchs,  the  parental  power  over  children 
was  still  absolute.  The  sacrifice  of  Abraham  is  a  proof.  It  is  clear 
the  God  would  not  have  commanded  what  was  against  the  positive 
law. 

Moreover,  different  passages  of  Flavius  Josephus  establish,  in  the 
most  clear  and  positive  manner,  that  the  absolute  power  of  fathers 
in  their  families  was  maintained  among  the  Jews,  at  least  up  to  the 
time  of  Herod  the  Great,  which  corresponds  to  the  reign  of  Augustus 
in  the  Roman  Empire.  We  cite  for  example  the  trial,  by  Herod,  of 
his  two  sons,  Alexander  and  Aristobulus.  In  the  accusation,  which 
Herod  brought  against  them  before  Augustus,  he  says  that  in  this 
he  had  used  excessive  moderation,  since,  having  the  power,  as  a 
father,  to  kill  them,  he  had  brought  them  before  the  emperor.2  In 
the  reply  of  Alexander,  the  first-born,  to  the  accusation  of  Herod, 
he  formally  recognized  the  right  which  the  character  of  father  gave 
to  take  his  life  and  that  of  his  brother.1  But  what  is  more  clear  and 

1  Virgil,  /Eneid,  lib.  v.,  v.  358. 

2  Flav.  Joseph.,  Antiquit.  Haibreor.,  lib.  xvi.,  cap.  vii. 
1  Ibid.,  lib.  xvi.,  cap.  viii. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  IO3 

formal  is  another  speech,  made  by  Herod  five  years  afterward,  at  Be- 
ryta,  before  a  great  assembly  of  illustrious  persons,  against  these  same 
children,  whom  he  had  already  pardoned.  This  is  one  passage  of  that 
speech  :  Herod  said  that  "  nature  gave  him  full  power  over  his  chil 
dren  ;  that  a  law  of  his  nation  was  express  upon  the  subject,  which 
commanded  that  when  the  father  and  mother  brought  an  accusation 
against  their  children  and  placed  their  hands  upon  their  heads,  all 
present  were  obliged  to  stone  them ;  that  thus  he  might,  without  any 
other  form  of  process,  have  taken  the  lives  of  his  children  in  his  own 
country  and  kingdom  ;  but  that  he  desired  to  have  the  advice  of  that 
great  assembly ;  that  nevertheless  he  had  not  brought  his  sons  to 
them  because  they  were  the  judges  of  the  case,  since  their  crime 
was  manifest ;  but  only  that  they  might  enter  into  his  just  resent 
ments."  *  Thus  we  have  what  formally  establishes,  first,  that  among 
the  Jews  the  authority  of  fathers  over  their  children  was  absolute  ; 
next,  that  that  authority  was  maintained  intact,  at  least  up  to  the 
first  century  of  the  Christian  era;  finally,  that  there  was  a  law 
which  sanctioned  it  and  regulated  its  exercise.  Besides,  we  will 
find  this  jurisdiction  among  the  Romans  at  a  period  still  more 
recent. 

It  is  not  more  difficult  to  establish  that  the  absolute  right  of  fathers 
over  their  children  likewise  existed  among  the  Greeks,  although  at 
a  more  remote  period,  because  Greece  was  one  of  the  countries  of 
the  West,  which  sooner  passed  from  the  aristocratic  to  the  popular 
form  of  government.  Now,  we  have  already  said  that  it  was  only  the 
aristocratic  fathers,  noble  fathers,  fathers  who  were  sons  of  the  gods, 
who  enjoyed  this  absolute  authority  over  their  children.  It  existed 
fully  in  the  time  of  the  Trojan  war,  as  is  clearly  proved  by  the 
sacrifice  of  Iphigenia,  which  is  a  fact  completely  identical  with  the 
sacrifice  of  Abraham.  Nevertheless,  at  Sparta,  a  city  of  nobles,  a 
city  of  gentlemen,  a  city  where  there  was  no  burgher  class,  as  we 
will  show  hereafter,  the  power  of  life  and  death  over  children  seems 
to  have  been  maintained  up  to  a  late  period.  It  was  in  full  force  at 
the  time  of  Lycurgus.  Plutarch  relates  that  at  that  time,  at  the  birth 
of  a  child,  a  kind  of  family  council  was  held,  in  which  it  was  decided 
whether  the  newly  born  should  be  saved  or  killed.2  Even  at  Athens, 

1  Flav.  Joseph.,  Antiquit.  Hasbr.,  lib.  xvi.,  cap.  xvii. 

2  Plutarch,  Lycurgus,  cap.  xvi. 


IO4  HISTORY    OF    THE 

a  democratic  city,  where  the  civil  law  early  replaced  the  seignorial 
and  domestic  law,  the  absolute  authority  of  fathers  ended  so  recently 
that  in  the  time  of  Solon,  many  Athenians  sold  their  children,  which, 
Plutarch  says,  no  law  forbade.1  It  was  during  the  Homeric  period 
that  the  absolute  authority  of  fathers  of  farmlies  was  in  full  vigor 
among  the  people  of  Greece.  This  period  corresponds  exactly,  in 
the  comparative  history  of  legislation,  to  the  epoch  of  the  Patriarchs 
among  the  Jews. 

For  example,  at  each  of  these  two  epochs,  daughters  were  still  the 
property  of  their  fathers,  and  it  was  necessary  to  pay  a  certain  price 
to  marry  and  take  them  away.  Thus  Jacob  served  Laban  seven 
years  to  obtain  his  daughter  Rachel ; 2  and  Othryon  engaged  to  serve 
Priam  during  the  siege  of  Troy  to  obtain  his  daughter  Cassandra, 
without  dowry ',  that  is  to  say,  without  other  consideration  than  his 
services.  After  using  the  expression,  "without  dowry"  Homer 
immediately  adds  that  her  lover  promised  to  buy  her  by  the  expul 
sion  of  the  Greeks.3  This  will  be  further  established  below.  Dowry, 
as  we  understand  it,  belongs  to  a  much  later  epoch,  when  the  exist 
ence  of  children  in  the  family  was  established,  and  when  they  not 
only  no  longer  depended  absolutely  upon  the  father,  but  even  had  a 
fixed  part,  a  right,  in  his  inheritance.  It  is  because  of  their  not 
having  clear  ideas  of  the  family  relations  that  all  the  translators  of 
the  primitive  poets  committed  monstrous  errors,  and  disfigure  their 
models.  We  stop  midway  in  our  proofs  relative  to  the  analogy  of 
the  Greek  and  Hebrew  legislation,  at  two  epochs,  of  which  we  are 
about  to  speak.  We  say  here  only  what  is  indispensable ;  the  rest 
will  come  in  its  place. 

The  Roman  legislation  is  very  rich  in  souvenirs  of  the  ancient 
parental  authority,  and  their  chronicles  amply  confirm  what  their 
legislation  says.  In  his  history  of  Roman  antiquities,  Dionysius  of 
Halicarnassus  recites  the  old  law  of  the  Papirian  Code,  which 
authorized  fathers  to  kill  and  sell  their  children ; 4  the  Code  of  Jus 
tinian  likewise  mentions  it,6  as  does  also  the  Digest.6  Dionysius  of 

1  Plutarch,  Solon,  cap.  xiii.  a  Genesis  xxix.  18. 

8  Iliad,  lib.  xiii  ,  v.  367. 

*  Dion.  Halicar.  Antiq.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xxvi. 

5  Cod.,  lib.  viii.,  tit.  xlvii.,  leg.  x. 

6  Digest,  lib.  xxviii.,  tit.  h.,  leg.  xi. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  IO5 

Halicarnassus,  who  had  no  critical  understanding  of  the  fact,  which 
he  relates,  says  that  this  law  was  made  by  Romulus,  and  that  the  de 
cemvirs  transferred  it  to  the  Twelve  Tables.1  This  fact  of  the  abso 
lute  power  of  fathers  among  the  Romans  is  surrounded  by  so  many 
proofs,  that  we  give  a  few  of  the  most  curious.  Plutarch  relates  that, 
Rhea  being  delivered  of  Romulus  and  Remus,  Amulius,  her  uncle, 
ordered  them  to  be  cast  away.2  This  recalls  to  mind  that  Moses  was 
similarly  exposed,  and  that  CEdipus  was  suspended  by  the  feet  from 
a  tree.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  in  relating  the  well-known  his 
tory  of  the  Horatii,  says  that  the  old  Horatius,  defending  his  son,  the 
murderer  of  his  sister,  claimed  jurisdiction  of  the  case ;  because  in 
his  character  of  father  he  was  the  natural  judge  of  his  own  children* 
Plutarch,  in  his  life  of  Publicola,  relates  that  in  the  conspiracy  of 
the  Aquilians  in  favor  of  the  Tarquins,  Junius  Brutus  likewise  claimed 
jurisdiction  of  the  case  of  his  son  ;  and  that  he  tried,  condemned, 
and  had  him  executed,  by  virtue  of  his  parental  authority,  without 
observing  the  judicial  formalities  followed  in  the  cases  of  the  other 
conspirators.* 

This  absolute  parental  power  was  slightly  limited  by  the  law  of 
Sylla,  known  to  jurisconsults  by  the  name  of  Cornelia  dc  Sicariis ; 
but  we  find,  even  under  the  emperors,  examples  of  domestic  juris 
diction,  which  prove  that  the  sovereign  parental  authority  extended 
over  the  whole  duration  of  the  civil  law.  Seneca  relates  the  trial, 
by  a  great  personage  named  Titus  Arrius  of  his  son,  of  his  own 
authority  in  his  domestic  tribunal,  at  which  Augustus  assisted,  simply 
as  a  spectator.  The  statement  of  Seneca  is  very  precise  and  clear. 
He  says : 

"Titus  Arrius,  wishing  to  try  his  son,  invited  Augustus  to  his 
domestic  court.  The  emperor  came  to  the  home  of  the  citizen  ; 
he  sat  down  as  a  simple  spectator  of  an  affair,  with  which  he  had 
no  concern.  He  did  not  say,  Let  the  accused  come  to  my  palace ! 
which  would  have  been  to  assume  to  himself  the  cognizance  of  the 
trial  and  to  take  it  away  from  the  father.  The  cause  having  been 
heard,  for  the  prosecution  and  for  the  defence,  Titus  Arrius  asked 
that  each  one  should  write  out  his  judgment/'5  Tacitus  also  relates 

1  Dion.  Halicar.  Antiq.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xxvii.        'Plutarch,  Romulus,  cap.  iii. 
8  Dion.  Halicar.  Antiq.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xiii.  *  Plutarch,  Publicola,  cap.  vii. 

5  Seneca  de  Clement.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  xv. 
8 


IC>6  HISTORY    OF    THE 

that  a  senator  named  Plautius,  under  the  reign  of  Nero,  himself 
before  his  whole  assembled  family  and  according  to  ancient  usage, 
passed  judgment  on  Pomponia  Graecina,  his  wife,  accused  of  being 
given  over  to  superstitions;1  and  Tertullian  mentions,  in  the  intro 
duction  to  his  Apology,  domestic  trials,  which  had  recently  taken 
place  at  Rome,  and  which,  like  that  of  Plautius,  appear  to  have 
been  directed  against  the  Christians.2  Many  documents  authorize 
the  belief  that  this  absolute  parental  authority  did  not  disappear 
before  the  end  of  the  third  century ;  and  the  first  law,  which  posi 
tively  forbade  fathers  to  give,  sell,  or  pawn  their  children,  was  that 
of  Diocletian  and  Maximian.3  Nevertheless  a  law  of  Constantine 
permits  the  sale  of  children  in  case  of  great  poverty,  and  their 
abandonment  was  legally  permitted  under  Diocletian  and  under 
Constantine.* 

Now  it  would  be  very  easy  to  collect  analogous  facts  in  the  history 
of  other  ancient  peoples,  besides  the  Jews,  Greeks,  and  Romans. 
The  history  of  the  different  nations,  that  inhabited  Asia  Minor,  is 
full  of  testimony,  which  proves  that  the  authority  of  fathers  over 
their  children  was  absolute  among  them  down  to  a  period  nearly 
approaching  the  Christian  era.  Xenophon  relates,  in  his  Anabasis, 
that  a  Thracian  king,  named  Teutes,  offered  to  give  him  his  daughter 
and  to  buy  his,  if  he  had  one.  The  barbarian  added,  This  is  the 
law  of  the  Thracians.5  There  is  in  Plutarch  still  another  fact  of 
the  same  kind.  This  chronicler  relates  that  in  the  distress  of  the 
proprietors  of  Asia  Minor,  after  the  defeat  of  Tygranes  and  the 
arrival  of  Lucullus,  the  fathers  of  families,  who  could  not  pay  the 
tax  to  the  Roman  collectors,  sold  their  young  children  and  their 
daughters  in  marriage.6  We  will  recur  to  other  analogous  and  con- 
c  lusive  examples  in  the  chapter,  in  which  we  treat  of  the  origin  of 
pauperism. 

We  have  dwelt  upon  the  history  of  fathers  of  families  and  of  the 
ancient  parental  authority,  because  fathers  were  the  first  masters, 
and  the  well-established  history  of  the  first  masters  naturally  gives 
the  history  of  the  first  slaves. 

J  Tacit.  Annal.,  lib.  xiii.,  cap.  xxxii.  2Tertull.  Apologet.,  cap.  i. 

3  Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  iv.;  tit.  xliii. ;  leg.  I. 

4  Ibid.,  lib.  iv.;  tit.  xliii.;  leg.  2. 

6  Xenophon,  Anab.,  lib.  vii.,  cap.  ii.  'Plutarch,  Lucullus,  cap.  xx. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  IO/ 

Thus,  according  to  our  ideas  —  ideas  which  are  our  own,  which 
some  may  perhaps  think  bold  and  very  strange,  for  which  we  ask 
indulgence,  and  which  we  present  in  all  humility,  but  in  all  sincerity 
—  the  first  slavery,  which  was  seen  on  this  earth,  was  nothing  but  a 
subjection  to  the  ancient  and  primitive  paternity. 

In  admitting  this  idea,  which  we  have  supported  by  some  proofs, 
which  has  been  strengthened  in  our  mind  as  we  have  pursued  our 
Studies,  to  which  we  do  not  know  of  one  important  fact  to  the  con 
trary,  and  which  we  are  convinced  cannot  fail  to  be  established 
immovably  by  greater  and  more  unremitting  study  and  labor  than 
our  own  ;  with  this  idea,  we  say,  we  can  solve,  with  wonderful 
exactness  and  ease,  a  great  number  of  questions  hitherto  unanswer 
able,  relative  to  slavery.  We  explain  how  it  was  anterior  to  all 
written  constitutions ;  how  it  was  mentioned,  not  instituted,  in 
Genesis,  in  the  Iliad,  in  the  Papyrian  law,  and  in  the  Twelve  Tables  ; 
how  it  was,  as  we  have  said  above,  a  natural,  primordial,  simple, 
logical  fact ;  how  it  did  not  make  masters  proud ;  how  it  did  not 
lower  the  slaves ;  how  it  was  not  established  of  deliberate  purpose ; 
how  there  remains  no  souvenir  in  the  tradition  of  any  people  of  any 
violence,  which  it  has  done  suddenly  to  any  part  of  the  human 
race ;  how,  finally,  being  one  of  the  conditions  of  the  family,  it 
did  not  wound  the  moral  ideas  of  the  ancients,  which  were  derived 
from  the  actual  condition  of  the  ancient  family. 

Thus  we  can  now  say  that  we  have  found  out  who  were  the  first 
slaves.  They  were  the  children. 

By  a  singular  coincidence,  which  shows  that,  when  a  social  fact 
is  realized,  it  is  surrounded  by  Providence  with  all  the  circum 
stances  necessary  to  its  development,  the  epoch  of  history,  in  which 
the  parental  authority  was  absolute,  was  that,  in  which  polygamy 
prevailed.  In  reflecting  a  little  on  this  point  we  realize  that  the 
one  is  the  consequence  of  the  other.  The  ancient  fathers  of  fami 
lies  had  a  great  number  of  children.  The  Greek  traditions  have 
preserved  the  memory  of  the  fifty  daughters  of  Danaus.  In 
Homer,  Priam  says  to  Achilles  that  he  had  fifty  children,  nineteen 
by  the  same  mother,  Hecuba,  and  the  rest  by  different  concubines.1 
Plutarch  relates  that  in  the  early  wars  of  the  republic,  in  a  battle 

1  Iliad,  lib.  xxiv.,  v.  495-7. 


IOS  HISTORY    OF    THE 

with  the  Tuscans,  three  hundred  Fabii  were  killed ; l  and  he  men 
tions,  in  the  Life  of  Theseus,  a  personage  named  Pallas,  who  had 
fifty  children.2  In  the  history  of  the  Jews,  families  of  fifty  children 
were  very  common.  Flavius  Josephus  relatas  that  Gideon  had 
seventy  sons,8  Jair  thirty,4  Apson  thirty  sons  and  thirty  daughters,5 
Abdon  forty  sons,  who  were  all  living  at  his  death,  and  also  thirty 
grandsons.6  On  the  other  hand,  the  Bible  is  full  of  proofs  of  the 
multitude  of  children  born  to  the  ancient  patriarchs,  even  at  so 
recent  a  period  as  theirs,  when  concubinage,  if  not  precisely  pro 
hibited,  was  already  notably  weakened.  We  thence  conceive  that 
the  great  number  of  women  possessed  by  the  first  fathers  gave  rise 
to  families  much  more  numerous  than  ours ;  small  tribes  or  clans, 
in  which  the  children  and  grandchildren  were  servants,  and  the 
father  was  master. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

OF   THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   SLAVERY    BY    POSITIVE   LAW. 

AS  we  have  said,  by  all  sorts  of  testimony,  which  we  have 
abridged,  by  all  sorts  of  proofs,  which  we  have  collected, 
slavery  appears  to  have  been  born  in  the  family.  It  originated 
there,  spontaneously,  without  reflection,  without  law,  without  writ 
ten  decree,  accepted  or  imposed.  But  it  came ;  and  facts  attest  that, 
when  families  began  to  have  relations  with  each  other,  when  they 
met  and  mingled,  that  is  to  say,  when  that  generalization  of  indi 
viduals  in  one  body,  which  we  call  society,  took  place,  this  primitive 
fact  of  slavery,  growing  out  of  the  absolute  power  of  the  father  in, 
and  till  then  confined  exclusively  to,  the  family,  extended  beyond 
it ;  was  regulated  and  generalized  by  the  first  intervening  law ;  and 
new  sources  of  slavery  arose.  For  example,  it  was  an  occasion  of 
slavery  to  be  captured  in  war,  to  take  refuge  in  the  house  of  another, 

1  Plutarch,  Fur.  Camillus,  cap.  xix.  3Ibid.,  Theseus,  cap.  Hi. 

*  Flav.  Joseph.  Antiq.  Haebreor.,  lib.  v.,  cap.  ix. 

*  Ibid.  &  Ibid.  *  Ibid. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES. 

to  fail  to  pay  one's  debts,  and  for  daughters  to  be  married  out  of 
their  families  or  tribes. 

The  right  of  war  over  men,  in  primitive  times,  came  from  this,  that, 
by  mancipation,  as  the  Roman  jurisconsults  say  —  by  seisin,  as  ours 
express  it  —  the  conqueror  was  substituted  to  the  rights  of  the  father 
of  the  vanquished.  What  appears  to  prove  this  clearly  is  that,  ac 
cording  to  the  remark  of  Vico,  among  the  ancients  the  vanquished 
were  considered  as  men  without  gods;1  and  that,  as  we  have  shown, 
in  the  language  of  the  primitive  poets,  the  gods  and  the  ancestors 
of  great  families  were  absolutely  the  same  thing.  This  explains  why 
the  ancients  so  carefully  hid  their  gods  in  their  citadels,  and  why 
enemies  besieging  a  city  sought  above  all  things  to  seize  these  gods. 
The  Trojan  Pallas,  the  Juno  of  Argos,  and  the  Sacred  Shield  of 
Rome  are  monuments  of  these  primitive  notions;  and  the  gramma 
rian  Macrobius  has  preserved  the  very  curious  formula,  with  which 
the  ancient  Romans  besought  the  gods  to  leave  the  cities,  which 
they  were  about  to  assault.2  The  vanquished  without  gods  were 
what  the  jurisconsults  express  by  ex  lex,  out  of  the  pale  of  the  law. 

Places  of  refuge,  or  asylum,  were  still  another  source  of  slavery;3 
the  man  who  had  recourse  to  them  became  the  thing  of  his  pro 
tector.  These  asylums,  which  are  found  in  all  the  early  epochs,  in 
all  those  moments  of  confusion,  when  there  were  no  social  guaran 
tees,  drew  to  them  the  maltreated  slaves,  malefactors,  and  that 
always  notable  mass  of  inquiet  and  turbulent  men,  who  had  occasion 
to  fly  and  take  the  chances.  History  bears  witness  that  all  founders 
of  cities  thus  opened  asylums.  Moses  determined  the  cities,  in 
which  murderers  could  take  refuge.4  Theseus  opened  a  refuge  at 

1  The  conquered  were  considered  as  men  without  a  god ;  slaves  were  called  in 
Latin  mancipia,  as  if  they  were  inanimate   things,  and  they  were  placed  loco 
rerum  in  jurisprudence.     (Vico,  Science  Nouvelle,  translated  by  Michelet,  lib. 
iv.,  ch.  iv.)   (a) 

(a]  Notwithstanding  all  we  have  suffered  in  the  South  from  military  governors, 
carpet-baggers,  and  scalawags,  our  conquerors  have  treated  us  magnanimously ; 
for,  according  to  ancient  law  and  usage,  they  might  have  treated  us  as  men  with 
out  a  God —  as  inanimate  things —  and  sold  us  into  slavery,  by  right  of  conquest. 
Perhaps,  then,  it  is,  after  all,  fortunate  for  us  that  they  had  accepted  the  doctrine 
that  "free  labor  is  cheaper  than  slave  labor"  because  it  does  not  carry  with  it  the 
corresponding  obligation  of  taking  care  of  infancy,  sickness,  and  old  age. 

2  Macrob.  Saturnal.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  ix.  »  Leviticus  xxv.  45,  46. 
4  Numbers  xxxv.  II,  14,  15. 


HO  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Athens,  and  the  recollection  of  it  was  preserved  so  faithfully  that 
Plutarch  thinks  that  the  language  of  the  public  criers  of  his  time, 
"All  people,  come  here,"  were  the  exact  words  of  Theseus.1  Final 
ly,  Romulus  opened  another  at  Rome,  to  which  all  the  serfs  of 
Latium  withdrew.2  The  asylum  of  Romulus  %ven  remained  open 
during  the  whole  time  of  the  republic,  for  we  read  in  Suetonius  that 
Tiberius  closed  it.* 

There  is  this  general  remark  to  be  made  on  asylums :  that,  prim 
itively —  (and  the  proofs  of  this  would  not  be  difficult)  —  the  men, 
who  repaired  to  them,  became  the  clients,  the  subjects  of  their  pro 
tector,  and  that,  consequently,  these  places  of  refuge  became  the 
opposite  of  places  of  social  safeguard  and  franchise.  This  radical 
difference  is  explained  in  a  word  :  Asylums  were  the  occasions  of 
slavery,  when  they  were  opened  by  the  fathers,  the  masters ;  and 
that  was  the  case  of  the  more  ancient ;  they  were  the  occasions  of 
enfranchisement,  when  they  were  opened  by  cities  within  their  walls, 
or  by  the  priests  in  their  temples,  and  this  was  the  case  of  the  more 
recent. 

It  was  in  the  middle  ages,  that  is  to  say,  at  a  time  when  the 
general  guarantees  had  ceased,  that  asylums  reappeared.  There 
were  certain  territories,  where  a  sojourn  imposed  slavery,  and  the 
jurisconsults  called  "  the  advowry  of  free  persons  not  noble  "  the 
declaration  of  freedom,  which  every  free  person,  entering  those  ter 
ritories,  prudently  was  required  to  make.* 

The  common  law,  or  rather  the  generality  of  the  local  laws  —  for 
there  was  no  common  law  in  France  in  the  middle  ages  —  was  then 
that  masters  or  lords  had  the  right  to  pursue  their  slaves  or  serfs,  as 
we  read  in  many  customs.6 

1  Plutarch,  Theseus,  ch.  xxv.  '^Eneid,  lib.  viii.,  v.  342. 

3  Sueton.  Tranquil.,  T.  Nero  Caesar,  cap.  xxxix. 

4  This  declaration  is  still  called  adveu  de  bourgeois.    It  should  be  made  within 
a  year  and  a  day  from  the  settlement.    (La    Thomassiere,    Local  Customs  of 
Berry,  etc.,  chap,  xiii.) 

5  See  in  the  Coutumier  General  the  customs  of  Vitry,  article  145 ;  the  customs 
of  Chatelet,  article  10;  the  customs  of  Chateauneuf,  article  14;  the  customs  of 
Chateau-Meillan,  article  29. 

"  What  we  have  said,"  adds  La  Thomassiere,  "  that  the  lord  has  a  right  to  follow 
his  serfs,  wherever  they  may  flee,  ceases  when  the  serfs  take  refuge  in  the  places 
of  asylum  and  cities,  in  which,  by  privilege,  there  is  no  right  of  pursuit."  (La 
Thomassiere,  Local  Customs  of  Berry,  chap.  5.) 

Moreover,  this  right  of  pursuit  over  slaves  and  serfs  is  found  naturally  estab 
lished  among  all  peoples  during  the  period  of  slavery.  It  was  established 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  Ill 

Nevertheless,  there  were  many  cities  in  France,  which  had  the 
right  of  asylum,  and  in  which  masters  and  lords  lost  all  their  rights 
over  slaves  'and  serfs,  who  took  refuge  in  them.  Of  this  number 
was,  first,  Toulouse,  on  which  Chopin  recalls  that  many  Moorish 
slaves  of  Spain,  having  taken  refuge  there  and  invoked  the  liberty 
of  the  Christians,  were  admitted  to  the  enjoyment  of  municipal 
rights.1  To  Toulouse,  we  must  add,  according  to  Chopin  and  La 
Thomassiere,  Bourges,  Issoudun,  Duns-le-Roi,  Meun,  Vierzon, 
Concorsault  in  Berry,  St.  Malo  in  Bretagne,  and  Valenciennes,  in 
Hainault.  Paris  was  not  a  city  of  refuge,  as  Dumoulin  observes  in 
his  remarks  on  the  first  article  of  the  customs  of  Berry.  Also,  the 
lord  of  Chateau-Roux,  in  Berry,  was  permitted  (Chopin  does  not 
say  at  what  epoch)  to  follow  his  fugitive  slave  at  Paris,  in  spite  of 
the  Abbe  of  St.  Genevieve,  in  whose  court  he  had  taken  refuge.2 
Neither  had  Lyons  the  right  of  asylum ;  and  La  Thomassiere  cites 
a  decree  of  the  year  1559,  in  favor  of  Hugues  de  Nagu,  commander 
of  Echelles,  in  Savoy,  for  the  body  of  his  fugitive  slave  at  Lyons.3 
Nevertheless  things  changed,  as  to  Paris  at  least,  toward  the  mid 
dle  of  the  eighteenth  century;  for,  by  the  intervention  of  the  city 
in  the  trial,  the  Marquis  de  la  Tournelle  was  denied  a  right  to  take 
his  fugitive  slave  at  Paris,  by  a  decree  of  iyth  June,  1760,  and  the 
city  of  Paris  thus  obtained  the  right  of  asylum,  twenty-nine  years 
before  the  time,  when  the  whole  of  France  became  an  asylum  for 
all  the  serfs  and  slaves  of  the  universe.* 

Debt  also  was  another  source  of  slavery.     This  is  not  doubtful, 

throughout  the  whole  Roman  Empire  since  the  third  century,  as  is  proved  by  the 
following  law  of  Gratian  : 

"  Omnes  omnino  fugitives  adscriptitios,  colonos  vel  inquilinos,  sine  ullo  sexus, 
muneris,  conditionisque  discrimine,  ad  antiques  penates,  ubi  censiti  atque  educati, 
natique  sunt,  provinciis  praesidentes  redire  compellant." 

All  rulers  of  provinces  everywhere  shall  compel  the  return  of  fugitive  slaves, 
whether  agricultural  or  domestic,  to  their  old  homes,  where  they  were  enrolled 
and  educated  and  born,  without  regard  to  sex,  reward,  or  condition.  (Code  of 
Justinian,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xlvii.,  leg.  vi.)  (a) 

(a)  This  is  curiously  interesting  to  the  historian  as  precedents  for  the  contract 
between  the  States,  contained  in  second  and  third  paragraphs,  sec.  2,  art.  iv., 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

1  Renat.  Chopin,  de  Doman.  Gallic.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  xiii.,  No.  xxiii.     See,  also,  as 
to  other  cities  we  have  named,  La  Thomassiere,  Local  Customs,  cap.  xiii. 

2  Renat.  Chopin,  quoted  above.          3  La  Thomassiere,  Local  Customs,  cap.  xiii. 
4  Renauldon,  Diet,  des  P"iefs,  word  serfs. 


112  HISTORY    OF    THE 

so  far  as  relates  to  Roman  and  Greek  history.  We  even  read  in 
Tacitus  that  the  Germans  sometimes  lost  at  play  even  the  liberties 
of  their  persons,  and  in  that  case  resigned  themselves  very  quietly 
to  slavery.1  Among  the  Jews,  the  legislation  ^f  Moses,  which,  it  is 
true,  is  comparatively  recent,  speaks  only  of  the  case  where  a  Jew 
is  forced  by  poverty  to  sell  himself  to  another; 2  but  Flavius  Josephus 
relates  that  at  a  much  later  period,  under  King  Joram,  the  son  of 
Josaphat,  the  widow  of  Obdias,  steward  of  King  Achad,  went  to 
find  the  prophet  Elias,  and  told  him  that,  not  having  wherewith  to 
pay  the  money,  which  her  husband  had  borrowed  to  feed  the  hun 
dred  prophets,  whom  he  had  saved  from  the  persecutions  of  Jeze 
bel,  his  creditors  claimed  to  have  her  and  her  children  for  slaves* 
Plutarch  relates  that  Solon,  on  his  accession  to  the  government, 
found  a  great  number  of  citizens,  who  were  slaves  of  their  cred 
itors.4  Samuel  Petit  also  mentions  the  ancient  Athenian  law,  which 
gave  to  lenders  the  liberty  of  the  borrowers  in  pledge ; 5  and  Aulus 
Gellius  cites  the  terms  of  the  law  of  the  third  table,  which  estab 
lished  an  analogous  legislation  among  the  Romans.  The  severity 
of  the  law  was  even  such  that,  if  there  were  many  creditors,  they 
could,  at  their  choice,  sell  the  debtor  to  strangers,  or  they  could 
cut  his  body  in  pieces  and  divide  it  among  them.6  We  add  that 
for  such  facts  we  need  authorities,  such  as  Aulus  Gellius,  Tertullian,7 
and  Quintilian.8 

As  to  the  marriage  of  daughters,  we  have  few  documents,  except 
for  the  epoch  when  the  fusion  of  the  primitive  families  in  the  com 
mon  or  civil  life  commenced  to  operate,  and  the  authority  of  the 
fathers  began  to  be  limited.  We  have,  therefore,  souvenirs  rather 
than  proofs  of  the  enslavement  of  girls  by  marriage.  The  legisla 
tion  of  Moses  as  to  daughters  is  much  advanced,  and  furnishes  us 
almost  nothing  for  our  subject.  All  that  we  see  in  Numbers,  on 
the  occasion  of  the  immense  step  made  in  the  law  by  the  demand 

1 C.  Tacit,  de  Germania,  cap.  xxiv.  *  Leviticus  xxv.  39,  40. 

8  Flav.  Joseph.,  lib.  ix.,  cap.  ii.  *  Plutarch,  Solon,  cap.  xv. 

5  Samuel  Petit,  in  Leges  Atticas  Commentar.,  tit.  iv.  It  should  be  remarked 
that  the  right  of  exposing  infants  was  considered  by  the  jurisconsults  as  equiva 
lent  to  the  right  of  killing  them.  See  Digest.,  lib.  xxv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  iv. 

«  Aulus  Gellius,  Noct.  Attic. ,  lib.  xx.,  cap.  i. 

1  Tertullian,  Apologet.,  cap.  iv.  8  Quintilian,  Institut.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  vi. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  113 

of  the  daughters  of  Zelophehad,  is  that  a  daughter,  who  marries 
out  of  her  tribe,  breaks  all  the  bonds  of  parentage.1 

This  is  certainly  a  trace  of  the  much  more  complete  solution  of 
continuity,  which  marriage  worked  in  more  ancient  epochs.  For 
example,  in  the  Iliad,  which  is,  relative  to  the  developments  of 
the  family,  much  more  ancient  and  primordial  than  the  Bible,  the 
evidences  abound  as  to  the  slavery,  to  which  marriage  reduced 
daughters  and  wives.  We  have  already  cited  the  example  of  Cas 
sandra,  whom  Othryon  bought  of  Priam,  as  Jacob  bought  Leah  and 
Rachel  of  Laban,  their  father ;  but  there  are  many  others  that  are 
neither  less  clear  nor  less  conclusive.  In  the  ninth  book,  Agamem 
non,  regretting  having  occasioned  the  wrath  of  Achilles,  to  appease 
him,  offers  to  give  him  magnificent  presents;  first,  seven  Lesbian 
slaves,  with  Briseis ;  then,  when  Troy  shall  be  taken,  twenty  cap 
tives,  the  most  beautiful  after  Helen  ;  then  finally,  as  the  capstone 
of  his  generosity,  one  of  his  own  three  daughters,  at  his  choice  and 
without  dowry,  as  the  translators  have  it,  or  rather  without  his  pay 
ing  any  price  for her? as  it  ought  to  be  translated.  It  is  evident  that 
if  the  rule  had  been  to  give  a  dowry  to  daughters,  Agamemnon 
would  not  have  boasted  of  offering  his  for  nothing,  as  of  a  very 
magnificent  proceeding.  Besides,  it  is  so  certain  that  in  the  mouth 
of  Agamemnon,  the  word  ANAEDNON  means  "  without  his  having 
to  purchase  her"  and  not  " without  my  giving  her  a  dowry,"  that  he 
immediately  adds  :  "for  my  part,  on  the  contrary,  I  will  give  him 
gifts,  such  as  fathers  do  not  give  with  their  daughters ;  I  will  give 
him  seven  superb  cities."3  Besides,  there  is  in  the  i6th  book  an 
example,  which  leaves  no  reply.  Homer  says  of  Polydora,  mother 
of  Menestheus,  that  her  husband  espoused  her,  buying  her  with  many 
riches.4 

The  evidences  are  not  more  rare  in  Roman  history  as  to  the 
slavery,  to  which  marriage  reduced  women.  Virgil,  who  was  a 
man  of  profound  knowledge  of  ancient  Italian  usages,  has  touched 

1  And  if  they  be  married  to  any  of  the  sons  of  the  other  tribes  of  the  children 
of  Israel,  then  shall  their  inheritance  be  taken  from  the  inheritance  of  our  fathers, 
and  shall  be  put  to  the  inheritance  of  the  tribe  whereunto  they  are  received;  so 
shall  it  be  taken  from  the  lot  of  our  inheritance.     Num.,  chap,  xxxvi.  (a) 

(a)  See  also  the  reply  of  Moses  in  the  verses  which  follow. 

2  Iliad,  lib.  ix.,  v.  144-146.  'Ibid,  ix.,  v.  147-149. 
4  Ibid.,  lib.  xvi.,  v.  178. 


114  HISTORY    OF    THE 

this  matter  two  or  three  times  in  his  poems.  In  the  yEneid,  Juno 
proposes  to  Venus  to  be  reconciled  to,  and  accept,  Dido  as  the 
spouse  and  slave  of  her  son  ^Eneas.1  Servius,  in  his  commentary  on 
Virgil,  adds  on  this  passage,  "the  author  here  refers  to  marriage 
by  purchase."11  The  Georgics  contain  another  analogous  fact,  not 
less  curious.  Virgil  wishes  for  Caesar  that  Thetis  should  buy  him 
for  a  son-in-law.8  Only,  there  is  this  peculiarity  that  Thetis  is  con 
sidered  as  the  father  of  a  family  marrying  his  children.  We  know, 
moreover,  to  finish  this  subject,  that  there  were  in  the  ancient 
Roman  jurisprudence  three  kinds  of  marriages,  one  of  which  had 
the  name  of  purchase,  coemptio.  In  the  ceremony,  the  man  gave  a 
piece  of  money,  which  was  the  symbol  that  he  had  succeeded  to  a 
real  purchase.  Pierre  Pithou  calls  to  mind  that  by  the  marriage 
coemptio,  as  well  as  by  another,  which  was  called  confarreatio,  the 
woman  fell  under  the  power  of  the  husband,  or  of  him,  to  whom  the 
husband  belonged. 

We  have,  then,  independently  of  the  paternal  power,  four  great 
sources  of  slavery  among  the  ancients.  The  slaves,  who  succes 
sively  sprang  from  them,  had  this  special  feature  :  that  they  were  not 
slaves  of  their  fathers;  and  began  the  long  chain  of  stranger  slaves. 
At  first  no  one  was  master  without  being  the  father,  nor  did  the 
master  own  any  but  his  own  children.  As  soon  as  these  four  sources 
were  opened,  one  could  be  master  without  being  father,  and  own 
the  children  of  another.  The  absolute  power  thus  extended  beyond 
the  circle  of  the  family,  to  which  it  was  primitively  confined,  and 
acquired  from  without  subjects,  which  blood  had  not  given. 

It  is  evident  that,  although  there  were  many  differences  between 
slavery  applied  to  children,  and  slavery  applied  to  strangers,  the 
one  naturally  proceeded  from  the  other.  The  authority  of  the 
master  proceeded  from  the  authority  of  the  father.  Long  time  after 
slavery  in  the  family  had  existed  as  a  fact,  laws  and  institutions 
came,  which  fixed  its  theory  and  erected  it  into  a  right.  In  this 
state  we  find  it  established  in  history,  and  it  is  only  by  the  souve 
nirs,  scattered  through  the  primitive  traditions  and  collected  by  the 
heroic  poets,  that  we  go  back  by  induction  to  its  original  situation 
and  its  nature.  It  was  necessary  that  slavery  should  have  become 

id,  lib.  iv.,  v.  103.  'Servius,  in  ^Eneid.          'Georg.,  lib.  i.,  v.  3. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  115 

a  fact  before  becoming  a  right,  without  which  the  past  of  nations 
would  be  an  absurd  enigma;  without  which  we  cannot  explain 
what  is  observed  in  all  legislation  relative  to  the  family,  namely, 
that  the  farther  we  go  back,  the  more  the  authority  of  the  father 
absorbs  and  swallows  up  the  personality  of  mother  and  children ; 
without  which  it  will  be  impossible  to  account  for  the  moral  convic 
tion,  which  makes  slaves,  who  are  twenty  times  more  numerous 
than  their  masters,  consent  to  remain  slaves  ;  without  which  we  can 
not  comprehend  how,  among  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  men  sold 
in  the  Jewish,  Greek,  Roman,  and  Gallic  markets,  none  were  found, 
who  rose  in  their  dignity  and  strength  to  buy  their  buyers ;  without 
which  it  would  be  monstrous,  incredible,  unheard  of,  that  so  many 
great  geniuses  of  antiquity,  who  were  slaves,  or  sons  of  slaves  —  that 
^sop,  who  was  the  preceptor  of  Greece  ;  Phaedon,  the  disciple  of 
Socrates ;  Terence,  the  most  elegant  writer  of  Italy  —  that  Plautus, 
Phaedrus,  Horace,  the  poets,  the  immortal  poets,  who  had  reason 
and  poesy,  the  ideas  and  the  form,  who  comprehended  and  could 
speak  —  never  cried  out  once,  not  once,  in  favor  of  the  slaves,  their 
brothers  ;  without  which,  finally,  there  would  have  remained  in  the 
memory  of  the  peoples,  in  legends,  in  songs,  in  poems,  something 
of  that  terrible,  sacrilegious,  and  abominable  time,  when  men  had, 
of  deliberate  purpose,  enslaved  other  men,  had  taken  from  them  not 
only  their  liberty,  but,  much  more  than  that,  their  families,  their 
rights,  their  personality,  their  name  ;  more  than  that  still,  their 
faith  in  themselves,  their  consciousness  of  the  nobility  and  sanctity 
of  their  nature. 

Now,  admitting  the  theory,  which  we  have  deduced  and  facts  jus 
tify  ;  all  is  explained,  all  becomes  simple,  easy,  and  natural.  The 
different  legislations  and  the  passages  of  the  poets,  which  unite  to 
bear  witness  to  the  primitive  absolute  authority  of  the  fathers  of  fam 
ilies,  give  us  a  knowledge  of  the  spontaneous  formation  of  slavery, 
which  is  thus  found  to  have  been  contemporary  with  liberty  ;  that  is, 
it  had  no  beginning,  and  dates  from  the  very  birth  of  men.  Once 
accepted  without  hesitation  in  the  family,  we  comprehend  easily 
how  slavery  passed  beyond  the  family,  and  how  a  son,  sold,  given, 
contracted  for  or  lost  by  his  father,  became  the  servant  of  a  stranger, 
without  any  change  in  his  condition,  and  without  his  having  any 
thing  to  regret  or  to  fear ;  he  continued  a  slave,  which  he  was 


Il6  HISTORY    OF    THE 

before.  Things  being  at  this  point,  then  came  the  generalization  of 
families,  their  reunion  in  the  city  or  the  state,  and  then  the  facts 
already  existing  were  fixed,  regulated,  and  sanctioned ;  manners  be 
came  laws,  customs  were  written,  the  slave  remained  still  a  slave. 
There  was  nothing  in  all  these  changes  to  wound  him,  or  to  revolt 
at.  Society  was  for  him  only  the  continuation  of  the  family;  he  is 
what  he  was,  and  the  laws  do  not  add  a  single  strand  to  the  lash  of 
the  father. 

Behold  an  explanation,  which  we  are  the  first  to  propose,  and  of 
which  we  are  forced  to  restrict  the  proofs.  We  are  convinced  that 
there  is  no  grave  objection  to  be  made  to  it,  and  we  will  certainly 
find  insuperable  difficulties  to  every  theory,  which  is  not  in  the  sense 
of  this. 

In  following  the  thread  of  our  ideas,  we  explain  how,  in  the  his 
tory  of  all  peoples,  there  are  always  two  inimical  races  in  presence 
of  each  other ; *  the  patricians  and  the  plebeians,  as  they  said  at 
Rome;  the  nobles  and  the  roturiers,  (common  people,)  as  we  say. 
The  nobles  are  the  historic  prolongation  of  the  ancient  fathers  of 
families;  the  roturiers,  or  burghers,  are  the  prolongation  of  slaves. 
We  give  our  thoughts  in  bulk  ;  we  will  give  them  soon  in  detail ; 
the  affirmation  first,  the  proofs  afterward. 

The  history  of  the  nobles  and  that  of  the  slaves  or  burghers  con 
tain  the  history  of  humanity  itself.  All  comes  from  that ;  all  is  ex 
plained  by  it.  The  nobles  are  a  magnificent  subject  for  study,  full 
of  things  fruitful,  new,  curious  in  the  highest  degree.  We  will  treat 
of  them  in  another  volume,  because  the  ideas  which  we  present  as  to 
slaves  will  be  conclusive  evidence,  when  completed  by  the  ideas  we 
will  present  as  to  the  masters.  Now  we  must  pass  on.  We  cut  one 
of  the  branches  of  our  historic  theory,  to  take  it  up  again,  to  read 
just  it,  to  graft  it  again  in  its  place.  We  will  now  follow  the  slaves 
in  all  the  accidents  of  their  fortune  and  social  changes,  and  show 
by  what  road  the  sons  and  slaves  of  the  heroes  of  primitive  times  have 
become  the  sovereign  people  of  the  present. 

1  Plato  de  Legibus,  lib.  vi. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  II/ 


CHAPTER  V. 

OF    THE    EMANCIPATION    OF   SLAVES   AND    FORMATION   OF 
THE    BURGHER   CLASSES. 

IT  is  easy  to  conceive  how  slaves  multiplied  from  the  first  ages  of 
history,  until  they  became  much  more  than  three-fourths  of  all 
populations.  Taking  slavery  in  the  family,  we  find  that  there  was 
but  one  master,  the  father,  while  he  might  have  in  his  children  fifty 
slaves.  Hence  the  limited  number  of  men  of  the  noble  race,  and 
the  infinite  number  of  the  slave  race.  We  make  use  of  these  words, 
free  race  and  slave  race,  although  the  human  species  evidently 
sprang  from  the  same  bed ;  because  once  seized  upon  by  slavery, 
the  slaves  have  really  lived  and  multiplied  apart,  marked  among 
every  nation  with  an  indelible  seal,  which  has  resisted  every  habili- 
tation.  Always,  everywhere,  not  only  the  freedmen,  but  those,  who 
have  been  ennobled,  have  been  pointed  out  and  mocked.  The  lan 
guage  of  Horace  to  Menas,  the  opulent  freedman  of  Pompey,  is  a 
profound  historic  truth :  ' '  Fortune  does  not  change  the  race. ' ' 1  This 
is  not,  however,  the  moment  to  dwell  upon  this. 

From  the  earliest  times,  as  we  have  said,  the  slaves  found  them 
selves  separated  from  the  free  men,  and  constituted  a  race  apart. 
They  were  fed  and  clothed  in  a  special  manner  proper  to  them. 
The  Jews  pierced  their  ears,2  the  Greeks  and  Romans  marked 
them  on  their  faces,*  whence  the  name  stichus  has  remained  a 
common  and  general  name  for  slaves.  From  the  time  of  Homer 
their  food  was  regulated,  and  they  did  not  eat  wheat  bread.  In 
the  Odyssey,  wheat  bread  is  mentioned  as  the  food  of  the  sons 
of  Jupiter,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  nobles ;  *  and  there  is  a  passage 
where  Ulysses  boasts  of  being,  after  Ajax,  the  most  remarkable  of 

1  Horat,  Epod.,  lib   od.  iv.  2  Exodus  xxi.  6. 

8  In  his  treatise  on  the  Revenues  of  Attica,  Xenophon  advises  the  city  of  Athens 
to  buy  slaves  with  the  public  funds,  and  hire  them  to  individuals,  as  conti  actors 
did.  He  adds  that,  to  prevent  their  running  away,  the  slaves  should  have  some 
particular  mark.  (Xenoph.  de  Vect.,  cap.  iv.) 

*Odys.,  lib.  iii.,  v.  479,  480. 


Il8  HISTORY    OF    THE 

the  men,  who  ate  of  this  bread.1  (a)  The  exclusive  use  of  wheat  bread 
by  the  nobles,  is  confirmed  by  a  passage  of  Lucan,  and  established 
in  a  general  and  peremptory  manner  by  Pliny,  the  elder,  in  his 
histories.2  It  appears,  moreover,  that  slaves  were  fed  in  Italy  and 
Greece  with  pork,3  garlic,  parsley,4  and  onions.  The  fact  of  the  onions 
corresponds  with  what  Herodotus  says,  in  the  twelfth  book  of  his 
history,  that  Cheops  expended  sixteen  hundred  talents  of  silver  for 
horseradish,  onions,  and  garlic,  to  feed  the  workmen,  who  built  the 
great  Pyramid  of  Egypt.5  A  verse  of  the  Ars  Poetica  of  Horace 
seems  to  establish  that  the  slaves  and  poor  of  Rome  also  lived  on 
peas  and  nuts.8  We  thus  readily  explain  how  the  slave  races,  sepa 
rated  from  the  free  races  by  moral  ideas,  by  physical  labor,  by  their 
clothing,  which  was  miserable,  by  their  food,  which  was  unwhole 
some,  in  reproducing  among  themselves,  in  their  lowliness  and  pov 
erty,  should  end  by  degenerating,  by  decreasing,  carried  off  by  the 
maladies  which  were  peculiar  to  them,  as  Titus  Livius  and  Pliny 
the  elder  testify,  and  which  have  disappeared,  to  the  great  aston 
ishment  of  medicine,  in  proportion  as  slavery  has  given  way  before 
liberty.7 

We  have  no  means  of  estimating  how  long  in  history  pure  slavery, 
that  is,  slavery  without  emancipation,  existed.  There  were  already 
freedmen  in  the  Bible  and  in  the  Odyssey.  Before  reaching  the 
period  when  emancipations  began  to  multiply,  we  must  be  permitted 
some  important  reflections  upon  the  state  of  primitive  society,  when 
all  were  still  either  masters  or  slaves. 

One  thing,  which  throws  great  light  upon  the  study  of  the  forma- 

^dys.,  lib.  viii.,  v.  221,  222. 

(a)  See  King  James's  translation  of  the  Bible,  Psalm  Ixxxi.  16  :  "  He  should 
have  fed  them  also  with  the  finest  of  the  wheat ;  and  with  honey  out  of  the  rock 
should  I  have  satisfied  thee." 

Compare  with  Psalter  for  the  sixteenth  day,  morning  prayer,  Psalm  Ixxxi.  17: 
"  He  should  have  fed  them  also  with  theyfw^tf  wheat  flour :  and  with  honey  out 
of  the  stony  rock  should  I  have  satisfied  thee." 

5Plin.  Nat.  Hist.,  lib.  xviii.,  cap.  xiv. ;  Ibid.,  lib.  xix. 

3Odys.,  lib.  xiv.,  v.  414-416.  4  Virgil,  Eclog.  ii.,  v.  9,  IO. 

5  Herodot.  Euterp.,  cap.  cxxv.  6Horat.  ad  Pison.,  v.  249. 

7  Pliny  mentions  a  malady,  which  first  appeared  in  Italy,  in  the  time  of  Clau 
dius.  This  malady  did  not  attack  the  nobility.  Subsequently  he  mentions 
another,  which  attacked  the  lower  classes  and  the  slaves.  (Plin.  Hist.  Nat.,  lib. 
xxvi.,  cap.  iii.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  lig 

lion  of  societies,  is  that,  during  the  primitive  period  of  pure  slavery, 
there  were  no  beggars.  In  effect,  one  is  not  a  beggar,  as  long 
as  he  has  wherewith  to  live ;  and  the  slave  is  fed  by  his  mas 
ter.  There  were  no  beggars  in  our  colonies  during  the  first 
years  of  their  existence,  and  there  are  none  still,  notwithstanding 
the  emancipation  of  a  great  number  of  negroes,  (a) 

Blackstone  judiciously  remarks  in  his  Commentaries  on  the  Eng 
lish  law,1  without  at  all  suspecting  the  general  and  human  value  of 
the  local  fact,  which  he  reports,  that  the  great  number  of  paupers, 
who  already  covered  England  in  his  time,  and  for  the  support  of 
whom  the  government  found  it  necessary  to  provide,  ever  since  the 
reign  of  Henry  IV.,  by  alms  raised  with  the  regularity  and  perma 
nence  of  a  normal  tax,  came  principally  from  the  many  freedmen, 
emancipated  without  precaution  during  the  middle  ages,  and  cast 
without  prevision  upon  society.  The  monasteries,  with  their  mag 
nificent  organization  of  free  hostelries  and  infirmaries,  fed  and  sup 
ported  them  as  best  they  could  for  a  long  time.  But  the  Reforma 
tion  pitilessly  closed  the  monasteries,  and  changed  laborers  into 
paupers,  and  paupers  into  thieves.  England,  in  her  civil  history, 

(a]  In  this,  our  author,  generally  so  accurate  in  his  statement  of  facts,  is  sadly 
in  error.  In  1849-50,  the  translator  visited  the  West  Indies,  and  found  pauper 
ism  and  mendicity  frightfully  abundant.  It  is  true  that  they  did  not  reach  the 
extremity  of  starvation,  as  in  more  Northern  and  inhospitable  climes;  because, 
in  the  luxurious  vegetation  of  the  tropics,  the  spontaneous  products  of  the 
forest  furnished  an  abundance  of  the  wherewith  to  live,  without  other  labor 
than  to  gather  and  eat.  But  even  this  labor  of  gathering  the  fruits,  which  boun 
tiful  nature  provides  in  that  latitude,  was  too  much  for  the  "  great  number  of  freed 
men  of  the  colored  race,"  and  their  children,  who,  rather  than  labor  for  a  half  hour 
in  gathering  in  the  woods  the  fruits,  which  would  support  a  family  for  a  week, 
took  to  mendicity  and  thieving. 

It  may  be  said,  that  our  author's  book  was  published  at  Paris,  in  1838,  and 
that  we  did  not  visit  the  French  colonies  until  1849-50.  But  Edwards  and 
McKenzie,  who  visited  them  long  before  —  (if  our  memory  serves  us,  McKenzie's 
report  was  laid  before  Parliament,  and  given  to  the  public  in  1822  or  1824)  — 
found  the  same  condition  of  things  then  prevailing.  McKenzie  not  only  dwells 
upon  the  pauperism  and  mendicity,  which  confronted  him  at  every  turn,  but  no 
tices  the  fact  that  a  very  few  short  years  of  liberty  had  carried  the  negro  freedmen 
back  to  the  worship  of  Obeah,  and  to  the  revolting  superstitions  and  practices  of 
Africa. 

1  Blackstone,  vol.  ii.,  chap.  i. 


I2O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

presents  this  character,  which  is  peculiar  to  her,  that  there,  more 
than  anywhere  else,  emancipations  have  operated  in  a  manner 
prompt,  immediate,  at  a  single  blow,  so  to  speak,  and  without  caus 
ing  the  slaves  to  pass  through  the  intermediary  preparation  of  ap 
prenticeship.  In  other  countries,  for  example*  in  France,  (and  the 
many  charters  entered  upon  the  catalogue  of  Brequigny  prove  this,) 
the  emancipations  of  the  middle  ages  produced  fewer  paupers ;  be 
cause,  without  any  premeditation  certainly,  and  solely  through  the 
effects  of  a  happy,  and,  we  may  say,  providential  inspiration,  they 
were  made  gradually  and  by  means  of  a  preparatory  apprentice 
ship.  Thus  it  appears  that  in  England  slaves  were  all  at  once  set  at 
liberty,  pure  and  simple. 

In  France  they  were  only  half  set  free,  and  were  placed  in  an 
apprenticeship,  which  was  the  novitiate  of  liberty.  Reserving  to 
ourselves  to  treat  more  at  length  hereafter  of  the  history  of  the 
emancipation  of  slaves  in  France,  we  propose  now  to  state  rapidly 
what  is  indispensable  to  the  proper  understanding  of  the  matters 
touched  upon  in  this  chapter.  A  piece  of  land  was  given  to  the 
slave  to  cultivate,  at  an  annual  rent.  This  kind  of  lease,  made  by 
the  master  to  the  slave,  which  was  not  according  to  the  civil  law, 
but  formed  one  of  the  elements  of  the  subsequent  customary  law, 
was  extended  more  or  less  according  to  the  activity  and  probity  of 
the  slave.  They  were  made  for  ten,  twenty,  or  thirty  years,  for  one 
generation,  for  two,  sometimes  for  three.  We  do  not  know  that 
any  of  these  contracts  made  by  the  masters  with  their  slaves  now 
exist,  except  in  the  ancient  archives  of  notaries,  that  fruitful  mine 
for  the  study  of  civil  history,  where  it  is  not  rare  to  find  documents 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  which  no  one  has  yet  thought  of  search 
ing  ;  but  the  leases  made  to  slaves  were  made  upon  the  system  of 
long  leases,  (emphyteotiques^  of  which  the  first  elements  exist  in  the 
code  of  Theodosius,  which  was  followed  up  regularly  through  the 
middle  ages,  arrived  at  its  greatest  development  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  on  which  there  are,  in  ancient  charters,  explicit  and 
numberless  documents.  This  kind  of  contracts  had  this  advantage, 
that  when  they  were  for  a  long  term,  as,  for  example,  for  three  gen 
erations,  a  century  passed,  during  which  the  action  of  the  master 
upon  the  slave  was  restrained  and  weakened ;  while  the  slave,  almost 
free  in  fact,  acquired  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  father  of  a 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  121 

family,  became  industrious,  economical,  settled,  prudent,  accumu 
lated  small  profits,  and  left  them  to  his  children.  At  the  end  of  a 
century,  when  three  generations  had  passed  away,  the  master  was 
much  less  a  master,  the  slave  much  less  a  slave.  Both  had  forgotten 
whence  they  came,  by  only  seeing  where  they  stood.  A  singular 
thing  !  Since  the  thirteenth  century,  we  can  see,  as  it  were,  an  im 
mense  reconciliation  of  men  and  things  kept  apart  by  Providence 
for  five  thousand  years.  While  the  sons  of  the  ancient  slaves  took 
courage  to  approach  less  cringingly  the  sons  of  the  ancient  masters, 
a  similar  phenomenon  was  taking  place  around  them.  Little  cabins, 
small  houses,  small  hamlets,  and  small  towns  began  to  venture,  little 
by  little,  upon  the  plains,  in  the  face  of  the  strong  castles  standing 
still  on  the  summit  of  the  hills,  like  black  sentinels,  which  guarded 
feudal  France,  and  which,  with  feet  booted  and  spurred  with  sally 
ports,  and  heads  armed  with  battlements,  let  their  new,  timid,  and 
wondering  neighbors  approach,  as  a  relief,  one  might  s'ay,  to  their 
solitary  majesty. 

It  was  not  from  the  agricultural  slaves,  nearly  all  of  whom  be 
came  small  proprietors,  that  the  paupers,  who  are  seen  in  France, 
originally  sprang,  but  from  the  slaves  of  the  workshops,  the  indus 
trial  slaves,  who  could  not  from  the  nature  of  their  labor  be  com 
prised  in  the  system  of  long  leases.  This  is  one  reason  why  there 
are  fewer  paupers  in  France  than  in  England ;  but  in  bulk  and 
generally,  whether  in  France,  or  England,  or  elsewhere,  whether  in 
modern  or  ancient  history,  everywhere  and  always  the  emancipa 
tion  of  slaves  is  the  first  and  universal  cause  of  pauperism  and  men 
dicity. 

For  many  years,  the  economists  have  written  on  the  causes  of 
pauperism,  without  having  found  out  this  one,  which  is  the  first  of 
all,  the  most  general,  the  most  real,  the  most  permanent.  It  is  true 
that  the  science,  called  political  economy,  until  now  in  its  positive 
part  has  been  nothing  but  a  great  heap  of  facts  without  connection, 
and  in  its  theory  a  great  crowd  of  ideas  more  or  less  crude.  Hav 
ing  studied  nothing  seriously,  it  knows  nothing  positively,  which 
seems  to  have  been  one  reason  for  calling  it  a  science.  But  what  is 
required  to  ascertain  and  prove  that  the  emancipation  of  slaves  is 
the  general  cause  of  mendicity  ?  We  should  remark,  first,  that  pau 
perism  seems  to  be  a  social  human  fact,  since  it  shows  itself  among 
9 


122  HISTORY    OF    THE 

all  peoples ;  that  it  is  only  slaveholding  peoples,  who  are  not  infested 
with  it;  that  is  to  say,  only  slaveholding  peoples  before  the  period 
of  numerous  emancipations ;  and  that,  as  soon  as  emancipations  be 
come  frequent,  beggars  make  their  appearance^  Next  we  should 
remark  that  the  great  irruption  of  beggars  in  Europe  took  place, 
as  we  will  hereafter  show  more  at  length,  from  the  second  to  the 
sixth  century  of  the  Christian  era ;  that  is,  when  to  the  mass  of 
pagan  freedmen  the  mass  of  Christian  freedmen  were  added ;  and 
that  this  irruption  manifested  itself  in  a  very  striking  manner  in  the 
regular  organization  of  hospitals,  which  were  unknown  to  the  an 
cients,  among  whom  there  were  only  private  infirmaries,  where 
each  one  took  care  of  and  fed  his  own  slaves.  History  thus  ob 
served  can  furnish  certain  data  to  the  science  of  the  economists ;  but 
it  has  seemed  to  them  a  much  shorter  process  to  pass  over  facts  than 
to  understand  them. 

Whenever,  therefore,  we  find  beggars  mentioned  in  ancient  books, 
we  can  be  certain  that  they  belong  to  an  epoch,  when  a  large  num 
ber  of  slaves  had  already  been  emancipated ;  that  is  to  say,  to  a 
secondary  epoch.  It  is  the  same  with  books,  where  we  find  hire 
lings  mentioned ;  for  the  ancient  hireling  was  nothing  else  than  a 
slave  become  entirely  free,  and  from  whom  one  bought  his  labor  by 
contract.  Hirelings  are  spoken  of  in  Leviticus1  and  in  the  Odyssey.* 
Plutarch,  in  his  Life  of  Theseus,  cites  a  verse  of  Hesiod,  taken  from 
his  poem  on  Labor  and  the  Day,  where  mention  is  also  made  of 
hirelings.3  There  is  also  another  passage  in  the  same  poem,  where 
mendicants  are  spoken  of,  which  brings  us  back  precisely  to  the 
same  point.4  We  conclude  from  these  evidences  that  the  books  of 
Moses,  the  Odyssey,  and  the  poems  of  Hesiod  form  a  synchronism 
in  the  development  of  the  civil  history  of  the  Jews  and  the  Greeks. 
We  have  read  the  Iliad  word  for  word,  deeply  impressed  with  the 
ideas  we  have  here  advanced,  and  we  can  say  that  there  is  not  a 
line  in  it,  where  there  is  any  mention  of  paupers ;  which  is  not  the 
only  reason,  which  we  could  allege,  to  show  that  it  is  historically 
impossible  that  this  poem  should  not  be  somewhat  older  than  the 
Odyssey. 

he  only  means  of  establishing  with  exactness  the  remote  epoch, 

1  Leviticus  xxv.  6.  2Odys.,  lib.  xi.,  v.  489. 

8  Hesiod,  Oper.  et  Dies,  v.  340.  *  Ibid.,  v.  365. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  123 

when  the  first  emancipations  took  place,  is  to  find  out  when  paupers 
and  hirelings  made  their  appearance  in  history ;  for,  as  we  have 
already  said,  there  could  not  be  either  paupers  or  hirelings  in 
the  epochs  of  pure  slavery,  which  were  the  primitive  epochs.  It 
does  not  appear  that  in  remote  times  emancipations  were  made 
rapidly  and  with  profusion.  Slaves  were  set  free  one  by  one,  ac 
cording  to  their  merits,  and  when  it  pleased  their  masters.  As  we 
have  said,  we  do  not  find  anywhere  among  any  ancient  people  any 
burdensome  accumulation  of  paupers  or  hirelings,  or  even,  what  is 
a  symptom  of  a  nature  entirely  identical,  any  association  of  thieves 
in  great  cities.  In  fact,  the  great  cities,  as  will  be  explained  and 
proved  in  its  place,  were  never  infested  with  thieves  until  the  epoch, 
when  the  system  of  houses  in  blocks  —  insulas,  as  the  Roman  archi 
tecture  styled  it  —  succeeded  to  the  system  of  isolated  houses.  The 
aggregation  of  houses  in  the  cities  not  having  begun,  as  we  will  here 
after  show,  until  the  formation  of  the  burgher  classes,  to  find  thieves 
organized  into  secret  and  nocturnal  companies  in  a  city,  is  to  prove 
that  it  was  built  under  the  system  of  houses  in  blocks ;  consequently 
that  its  population  was  organized  by  the  burgher  classes,  and  that  a 
great  number  of  emancipations  had  previously  taken  place ;  since,  as 
we  will  prove,  it  was  from  the  freedmen  that  the  burghers  arose.  Be 
sides,  it  is  certain  that  thieves  were  first  produced  from  hirelings 
without  work,  and  the  hirelings  themselves  were  produced  by  eman 
cipation  ;  whence  it  follows,  as  we  have  said,  that  the  existence  of 
thieves  proves  the  same  fact  as  the  existence  of  paupers  and  hire 
lings.  The  first  thieves  met  in  history  were,  as  we  have  already 
explained,  the  pirates  \  because  the  banks  of  rivers  and  the  coasts  of 
the  sea  were  the  first  frequented  places :  and  there  is  a  passage  in 
the  sixth  book  of  Plato's  treatise  on  The  Laws,  where  he  says  pos 
itively  that  the  pirates,  who  covered  the  coasts  of  Greece,  were  fugi 
tive  slaves.1 

It  was  then  individually  that  emancipations  were  made  in  ancient 
times,  and  this  explains  the  tardy  coming  of  the  burghers,  and  the 
advantage,  which  ancient  peoples  enjoyed,  of  not  being  encumbered 
with  beggars  and  thieves,  two  social  plagues,  which  emancipation 
has  caused.  When  we  approach  the  Christian  era,  we  meet  some 

1  Plato  de  Legibus,  lib.  vi. 


124  HISTORY    OF    THE 

examples  of  general  emancipations  made  by  party  chiefs  in  times  of 
civil  war,  or  by  some  general  of  an  army  in  extremities. 

Mithridates  employed  a  corps  of  15,000  slaves  against  the  Ro 
mans.1  Marius,  in  his  contest  with  Sylla,  published,  by  sound  of 
trumpet,  that  he  would  give  freedom  to  the  slaves  who  enrolled ; 
but  only  three  presented  themselves.2  During  the  campaign  of 
Sicilius  against  Sextus  Pompeius,  Augustus  set  free  20,000  slaves, 
to  make  sailors  of  them.*  These  are  some  examples  of  emanci 
pation  en  masse,  to  which  we  might  add  others ;  but  when  pagan 
ism  turned  over  the  ancient  world  to  Christianity,  freedmen  were 
not  numerous. 

It  was  principally  the  spirit  of  Christianity  which  has  multiplied 
emancipations.  Add  to  that,  that  the  disorder,  which  pervaded  all 
the  known  world  by  the  dismemberment  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
singularly  favored  the  escape  of  slaves.  Nevertheless,  the  system  of 
emancipation  in  mass  did  not  prevail ;  they  continued  to  be  made 
one  by  one,  but  were  more  frequent  and  more  continuous.  In  four 
thousand  years  ancient  civilization  had  not  cast  upon  society  enough 
freedmen  to  clog  and  obstruct  it ;  while  in  less  than  three  centuries 
Christianity  had  multiplied  them,  with  so  much  political  improv 
idence  and  such  charitable  profusion,  that  these  poor  people,  turned 
over  prematurely  to  themselves,  in  the  midst  of  a  disordered  and 
selfish  world,  of  which  they  had  no  experience,  found  themselves 
in  their  isolation  in  a  frightful  misery.  It  was,  in  fact,  from  the 
three  first  centuries  of  the  Christian  era  that  beggars  abounded  in 
Europe,  a  phenomenon  until  then  unseen  and  full  of  fearful  men 
aces,  which,  alas  !  have  been  too  fully  realized.  From  that  moment 
individual  charity  was  recognized  as  insufficient.  The  intervention 
of  the  entire  society  became  necessary,  and  we  find  in  the  code  of 
Theodosius  two  rescripts  of  Constantine,  of  the  years  315  and  322, 
which  are  the  first  public  acts  in  relation  to  paupers,  which  we  meet 
with  in  the  legislation  of  the  West.  The  second,  which  is  addressed 
to  Menander,  prefect  of  the  praetor's  tribunal,  proves  that,  as  we 
have  said,  emancipation  having  produced  paupers,  the  paupers  be 
came  thieves.4  . 

1  Plutarch,  Sylla,  cap.  xviii.  '    2Ibid.,  Marius,  cap.  xxxv. 

8  Sueton.,  Oct.  Caes.  August.,  cap.  xvi. 
4 Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xxvii.,  leg.  2. 


WORKING    AND     BURGHER     CLASSES.  125 

Besides,  whatever  may  have  been  the  epoch  or  the  number  of 
emancipations  in  primitive  times,  their  history  leads  us  to  lay  down 
this  principle,  which  this  book  will  demonstrate,  namely,  that  the 
emancipation  of  slaves  has  produced  the  proletariat.  This  mass  of 
men,  as  we  have  said,  is  common  to  all  peoples,  since  all  peoples 
have  had  slaves ;  but  it  was  singularly  swollen  by  the  spirit  of  Chris 
tianity,  and  it  presses  upon  modern  society  with  all  the  weight  of 
six  thousand  years. 

»The  proletaries  then  are  the  children  of  the  ancient  slaves,  the 
ancient  children  of  families,  given,  traded,  or  sold  by  their  fathers 
of  the  heroic  period.  This  great,  active,  terrible,  poetic,  and  un 
happy  race  tramps,  since  the  beginning  of  the  world,  toward  the 
conquest  of  repose,  like  Ahasuerus,  and  perhaps  like  him  will  never 
reach  it.  It  has  also  upon  its  head  an  old  curse,  which  commands 
it  incessantly  to  tramp. 

All  that  it  has  gained  by  tramping,  is  what  Homer  and  Plato  said 
to  it:  "  Tramp  ;  you  will  not  reach  it  in  this  world;  "  and  what 
Paul  said:  "Tramp;  you  will  reach  it  in  the  next."  It  tramps 
then  since  sixty  centuries,  all  covered  over  with  raillery  and  oppro 
brium,  and  without  any  one  taking  account  of  its  virtues  or  its  griefs. 
It  is  no  more  beautiful  for  having  produced  Aspasia ;  no  more  illus 
trious  for  having  produced  Phaedon  ;  no  more  brave  for  having 
produced  Spartacus.  Whatever  may  have  been  its  patience,  intel 
ligence,  and  wisdom,  it  has  never  been  called  child  of  the  gods,  like 
the  race  of  nobles;  and  Plato  himself,  notwithstanding  he  was  the 
slave  of  King  Dionysius,  cast  at  it  those  verses  of  the  poet,  which 
say  that  a  slave  has  only  half  of  a  human  soul.1  Singular  fatality  ! 
Emancipation  came  to  break  the  chains  of  the  slaves ;  their  necks 
remained  with  the  hair  rubbed  off,  like  the  dog  in  the  fable;  and 
one  of  themselves,  the  son  of  a  freedman,  Horace,2  in  the  most  bril 
liant  epoch  of  ancient  philosophy  and  civilization,  cast  in  their  faces 
this  eternal  stain:  "  Money  does  not  change  the  race  !  "  Whether 
they  gained  that  money  by  fatigue  of  the  body  or  of  the  mind  ;  with 
the  hand  or  with  the  head ;  whether  they  were  merchants  or  soldiers, 
senators  or  philosophers,  they  were  told  that  "money  does  not 
change  the  race  !  "  This  curse  of  blood  is  implacable.  Ventidius 

1Odys.,  lib.  xvii.,  v.  322,  323;  Plato  de  Legibus,  lib.  vi. 
'Herat.  Sermon.,  lib.  i.,  Satyr,  vi  ,  v.  6. 


126  HISTORY     OF     THE 

Bassus  had  the  good  fortune  to  become  consul.  They  said  to  him  : 
"You  were  a  boot-black  and  a  groom."1  Galerius,  Diocletian, 
Probus,  Pertinax,  Vitellius,  Augustus  himself,  had  the  good  fortune 
to  become  emperors.  They  said  to  Galerius :  "  You  were  a  swine 
herd  ;  "  to  Diocletian  :  "  You  were  a  slave;  "  to  Probus  :  "  Your 
father  was  a  gardener;  "  to  Pertinax:  "Your  father  was  a  freed- 
man ;  "  to  Vitellius:  "  Your  father  was  a  cobbler  ;  "  and  they  went 
so  far  as  to  write  on  the  marble  of  the  statue  of  Augustus,  in  the 
lifetime  of  this  master  of  the  world:  "Your  grandfather  was  a 
merchant,  and  your  father  a  usurer." 

If  this  eternal  and  universal  contempt  of  the  freedmen  does  not 
respect  the  highest  and  most  illustrious  heads,  judge  whether  it  will 
do  reverence  to  the  humble,  poor,  and  degraded  proletary.  The 
noble  family  keeps  them  away  from  its  hearthstone ;  civil  society 
denies  him  its  prerogatives.  He  is  born,  lives,  and  dies  apart  from 
other  men,  and  as  is  said  of  certain  rivers,  which  flow  together  in 
the  same  bed  without  mixing  their  waters,  the  proletariat  and  the 
nobility,  the  freedman  and  the  gentleman,  touch,  elbow  each  other, 
travel  the  same  road,  without  ever  combining  or  mingling  with  each 
other. 

Thus  the  proletaries,  driven  from  the  families  and  cities  of  the 
nobles,  repulsed  from  the  social  circle  and  the  senate,  should  natu 
rally  and  providentially  be  led  to  some  other  society,  where  they 
could  rest  their  heads.  God  gave  them  that  society  —  a  society 
new  in  fact,  unknown  to  the  ancient  fathers  of  families,  to  the  an 
cient  heroes,  to  the  divine  men  of  primitive  times ;  a  society  timid, 
submissive,  degraded  like  them,  cursed  like  them  —  the  commune  ! 
Yes  !  Everywhere,  always,  in  antiquity,  in  the  middle  ages,  among 
the  Hebrews,  the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  the  French,  the  freedmen 
were  organized  into  a  society  proper  to  the  slave  races,  which  is  the 
commune ;  the  commune,  which  has  been  developed  like  all  other 
things  that  are  born ;  the  commune,  poor  little  nest  of  owls,  which 
has  grown  great  enough  for  the  outstretched  wings  of  the  eagle,  (a) 

1  Aul.  Cell.  Noct.  Attic.,  lib.  xv.,  cap.  iv. 

(a)  The  majority  report  of  the  H.  R.  Committee  on  Education  and  Labor,  (Forty- 
first  Congress,  second  session,  Report  No.  121,)  intended  to  whitewash  General 
O.  O.  Howard,  Commissioner  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  on  the  charges  brought 
against  him  by  the  Hon.  Fernando  Wood,  contains  the  following  (see  pp.  18 
and  19): 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  I2/ 

"FRENCH    EMANCIPATION    IN   THE   ANTILLES.  * 

"  The  French  Government,  in  a  fit  of  enthusiasm  over  liberty,  declared  emanci 
pation  in  all  her  colonial  dependencies.  This  occurred  in  1794.  It  brought  only 
confusion  and  collision  in  the  different  islands.  To  proclaim  liberty  was  one 
thing ;  but  to  maintain  it  under  proper  restraints  of  law,  and  to  allow  emancipa 
tion  to  bring  forth  its  legitimate  fruits,  was  another  and  quite  a  different  problem, 
and  one  which  the  wisdom  of  France  could  not  solve.  True,  250,000  slaves  had 
been  freed;  but  war,  insurrections,  jealousies,  and  race  hatreds  arose  and  bore 
their  natural  fruits.  Emancipation  seemed  to  be  only  a  consuming  curse  to  these 
islands,  and  France,  wearied  out  by  the  heart-sickening  condition  of  her  colonies, 
in  the  year  1802,  the  year  of  the  Peace  of  Amiens  and  of  the  Consulate,  solemnly 
decreed  re-enslavement. 

"  BRITISH    EMANCIPATION. 

"In  abolishing  slavery,  the  English  Government  found  itself  beset  with  diffi 
culties,  which  it  attempted  to  overcome  by  adopting  a  system  of  semi-slavery  or 
apprenticeship.  It  is  generally  understood  that  this  was  the  scheme  of  Lord 
Brougham.  Wilberforce,  Clarkson,  and  others  had  given  sixteen  years  of 
thought  and  effort  to  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade ;  and  now  that  emancipation 
itself  was  a  fixed  fact,  the  combined  wisdom  of  English  statesmen,  Pitt,  Fox, 
Burke,  and  others,  agreed  upon  apprenticeship :  it  exploded,  however,  before  the 
prescribed  term  of  years,  which  it  was  to  run,  had  expired.  In  other  words,  the 
entire  scheme  was  a  failure. 

"  Such  were  the  lights  General  Howard  had  before  him  for  his  guidance." 

If  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  had  had  competent  and  honest  administrators,  it 
might  have  been  of  incalculable  benefit  to  both  races  in  the  South,  and  could  have 
done  much  to  relieve  the  "frightful  misery"  resulting  from  throwing  a  large 
number  of  slaves,  without  prevision  or  preparation,  on  their  own  resources  for 
support.  It  in  fact  exerted  a  very  beneficial  influence  in  some  few  localities, 
where  the  officers  of  the  Bureau  happened  to  be  competent  and  honest.  This, 
however,  was  unfortunately  very  rare ;  and  for  some  reason  or  other,  such  men 
were  dismissed,  as  soon  as  it  could  be  reported  to  headquarters  in  Washington 
that  they  were  giving  general  satisfaction  to  the  people  where  they  were  stationed. 
Why  this  was,  I  do  not  stop  to  inquire ;  but  only  refer  those,  who  feel  an  interest 
in  the  subject,  to  the  minority  report,  (same  document,  page  25,)  by  which  it  clearly 
appears  that,  however  incompetent  General  Howard  was  to  carry  out  the  benev 
olent  and  beneficent  designs,  contemplated  by  the  honest  supporters  of  that  insti 
tution,  he  was  very  competent  to  make  out  of  it,  for  himself  and  his  brothers, 
gigantic  fortunes  in  an  incredibly  short  space  of  time. 

The  actual  results  of  his  administration  soon  brought  so  many  complaints  from 
both  races,  that  President  Johnson  found  it  necessary  in  1866,  within  twelve 
months  from  its  establishment,  to  send  a  commission,  consisting  of  Major-General 
J.  B.  Steadman  and  Brigadier-General  J.  S.  Fullerton,  to  report  the  true  state  of 
facts.  (See  their  report.) 

The  New  York  Herald  also  sent  special  correspondents.     The  result  of  their 


128  HISTORY    OF    THE 

inquiries,  subsequently  fully  confirmed  by  the  official  report  of  Generals  Stead- 
man  and  Fullerton,  is  thus  summed  up  in  an  editorial  of  the  New  York  Herald 
of  the  9th  May,  1866: 

"The  Northern  humanitarian  has  taken  the  place  of  the  Southern  nigger- driver 
of  other  days,  only  to  show  that  he  can  be  the  more  cruel  of  the  two,  and  outdo  all 
that  maudlin  fiction  imputed  to  the  other.  Our  correspondence  on  this  subject, 
yesterday,  showed  how  a  reverend  humanitarian  from  Massachusetts,  attached  to 
the  Freedmen's  Bureau  and  managing  a  plantation  on  his  own  account,  actually 
shot  a  negro  for  attempting  to  "  run  away,"  and  this  when  slavery  has  been 
abolished.  This  establishment  (the  Freedmen's  Bureau)  is  the- parent  of  untold 
evils  in  every  part  of  the  Southern  States. 

"  All  the  idleness,  misunderstandings,  and  cases  of  bad  treatment  are  traceable 
directly  to  this  Bureau  and  its  agents.  It  is  corrupt  through  and  through.  It 
sells  negroes  to  planters  at  so  much  per  head,  and,  following  the  plan  of  the 
bounty-brokers,  sells  the  same  negro  over  and  over  to  different  rnen. 

"  It  is  undeniable  that  the  operation  of  this  Bureau  is  identical  with  slavery ; 
that  it  treats  the  negro  just  as  slavery  did,  only  that  it  gives  the  preference  in 
possession  to  another  class  of  men." 

At  the  anniversary  meeting  of  the  And- slavery  Society  in  New  York  city,  on 
the  Qth  May,  1866,  (see  New  York  Tribune,  loth  May,)  "Mr.  Calvin  Pepper 
denounced  the  Freedmen's  Bureau.  It  was  the  curse  of  the  South,  and  was  used 
for  the  purposes  of  private  speculation,  selling  the  labor  of  the  negroes.  He 
could  show  twenty  affidavits  to  prove  his  statements,  extraordinary  and  startling 
as  they  may  appear.  He  was  not  in  favor  of  the  military  occupation  of  the  South. 
He  did  not  want  the  habeas  corpus  eternally  suspended  there,  nor  a  military  des 
potism.  General  Howard  was  doing  his  duty,  but  as  a  general  thing  the  action 
of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  was  disastrous  in  its  effects." 

An  editorial  in  the  New  York,  Herald,  loth  May,  1866,  quotes  "a  colored 
correspondent  of  a  journal  in  the  South  owned  and  edited  by  negroes,  who  says 
of  the  Bureau:  'A  thousand  times  better  far  would  it  be  for  the  colored  man 
were  it  abolished;  for  instead  of  being  a  safeguard  or  protection  for  the  freedmen, 
it  is  only  a  place,  in  which  freedmen's  rights  are  bartered  away.  The  sooner  it 
is  out  of  the  way  the  better.'  "  The  Herald  editor  adds  : 

"  This  is  the  opinion  of  one  likely  to  be  informed  of  the  practical  workings  of 
the  system.  Accounts  of  official  malfeasance  in  the  Bureau  multiply  with  every 
day's  mail.  At  one  time  we  hear  of  some  swindling  or  oppressive  operation  in 
Louisiana,  next  in  North  Carolina,  again  in  South  Carolina,  Georgia,*  and  other 
Southern  States.  It  is  an  iniquitous,  expensive,  and  altogether  unnecessary 
establishment,  and  should  be  abolished." 

May  i6th,  1866,  the  Herald  says: 

"It  will  be  seen  that  General  Howard  admits  one  of  the  main  accusations; 
that  is,  that  the  chief  and  subordinates  and  representatives  of  the  Bureau  were 
4  running  plantations,"  and  furnishing  rations  to  their  negro  hands  at  Government 
expense,  for  their  own  personal  benefit.  Nor  does  he  deny  or  explain  the  charge 
that  the  same  officers  were  bartering  away  the  services  of  the  freed  negroes,  and 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES. 

allowing  them  to  be  sent  away  from  home  associations  and  separated  from  family 
ties,  under  circumstances  of  as  much  cruelty  as  ever  characterized  the  late  rebel 
lious  slaveholders." 

Mr.  Pepper  wished  to  believe,  and  to  make  the  world  believe,  that  "  General 
Howard  was  doing  his  duty,"  and  that  the  fault  was  in  his  subordinates.  But 
General  Howard  would  not  permit  this  ;  for  the  very  men,  who  were  making  the 
Bureau  a  gigantic  nigger-trading  monopoly,  supported  by  Government,  were 
General  Howard's  special  pets  and  favorites;  men  altogether  after  his  own  heart, 
and,  in  their  aptitude  for  hypocrisy  and  acquisitiveness,  fashioned  after  his  own 
image. 

To  break  the  force  of  the  official  confirmation,  by  the  report  of  Generals  Stead- 
man  and  Fullerton,  of  the  Herald's  disclosures,  he  hastened  to  make  himself 
conspicuous  in  the  religious  and  humanitarian  anniversaries  in  New  York  city. 
There,  relying  on  his  sanctimonious  reputation,  backed  by  the  usual  mixture  of 
slanderous  abuse  of  the  Southern  Whites,  he  boldly  took  upon  himself  the  respon 
sibility  for  the  atrocious  practices  of  his  subordinates,  admitting  that  he  had 
"urged  (upon  them)  the  renting  and  running  of  plantations,  to  afford  practical, 
examples,  to  encourage  joint-stock  companies"  (See  his  letter  to  the  Rev.  George 
Whipple,  of  8th  May,  1866,  published  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  of  I4th  May.) 
His  excuse  was  that  the  Southern  whites  were  indolent,  and  required  to  be  stimu 
lated  into  industry  by  practical  examples  of  the  rapidity,  with  which  the  Bureau 
officials  could  grow  rich,  on  the  labor  of  the  negroes  and  at  the  expense  of  the 
Government.  But  aware  that  this  explanation  would  hardly  be  sufficient  even  at 
the  North,  without  an  appeal  to  their  sectional  hatred  of  the  South,  he  sought  to 
divert  just  indignation  from  himself  and  his  subordinates,  by  exciting  an  unjust 
indignation  against  the  Southern  whites.  He  therefore  added,  in  his  Whipple 
letter :  "  The  Bureau  does  not  do  enough  to  secure  the  rights  of  the  negroes,  I  will 
admit ;  but  it  does  not  burn  negro  churches  and  school-houses  ;  it  does  not  reject  negro 
testimony.'1''  In  his  speeches,  not  fully  reported  and  therefore  not  of  record,  this 
idea  was  carried  out,  with  amplifications.  By  this  means,  and  by  party  influences, 
General  Howard  escaped  a  just  responsibility  for  the  infamous  atrocities  of  the 
Freedmen's  Bureau  ;  but  its  "  disastrous  action  "  was  too  manifest  even  for  the 
Radicals  to  continue  it,  and  it  was  abolished. 

Since  the  religious  anniversaries  of  May,  1866,  in  which  General  Howard 
played  so  conspicuous  a  part,  his  tactics  have  been  crystallized  down  to  a  single 
word,  Kii-Klux ;  and  now,  whenever  the  Radical  party  wish  to  defend  or  excuse 
any  outrage  on  the  States,  or  any  violation  of  the  Constitution,  all  they  have  to  do 
is  to  cry  out,  Ku-Klux  ! 

The  practical  action  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  while  it  lasted,  was  threefold : 
"First,  to  stimulate  acquisitiveness,  by  showing  what  sudden  and  enormous  for 
tunes  its  officials  could  gather  together  in  the  South. 

Second,  to  organize  the  negroes  into  loyal  leagues,  all  bound  by  secret  oaths  to 
vote  as  the  Radical  party,  through  Bureau  officials,  should  direct. 

Third,  to  excite  race  hatred  between  the  Southern  whites  and  the  freedmen. 


I3O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Since  the  discontinuance  of  the  Bureau,  the  "  race  hatred,"  which  it  had  suc 
ceeded  in  exciting  to  a  considerable  extent,  has  nearly  entirely  disappeared. 
Mutual  dependence  on  each  other  —  the  necessity  for  employment  or  protection 
on  the  one  hand,  and  for  labor  on  the  other  —  has  brough^the  old  masters  and  the 
old  slaves  again  into  kindly  contact,  and  revived  the  old  attachments  and  mutual 
fidelity,  so  strikingly  manifested  throughout  the  whole  war,  and  in  thousands  of 
instances  continued  uninterrupted  long  after  the  war,  in  spite  of  the  mischief- 
making  tendencies  of  the  Bureau.  A  mutual  interchange  of  the  offices  of  good 
neighborhood  is  every  day  strengthening  this  good  understanding  between  the 
freedmen  and  their  old  masters.  A  single  incident  of  the  last  election  in  Georgia, 
which  happened  in  my  own  town  of  Dalton,  will  illustrate  how  these  influences 
are  working,  generally,  throughout  the  South. 

We  have  at  Dalton  a  freedman,  named  Bill  Wilson,  by  trade  a  blacksmith, 
very  hardworking  and  honest,  and  much  respected  by  all  the  whites.  He  is 
moreover  a  very  zealous  Presbyterian.  Of  course  the  Bureau  carried  him  into 
the  Loyal  League,  and  he  was  a  leading  member.  No  Democrat  ever  thought 
of  approaching  him  on  the  subject  of  voting  a  Democratic  ticket.  But  at  the  last 
election,  to  the  surprise  of  everybody,  he  not  only  voted  the  straight-out  Demo 
cratic  ticket,  without  a  scratch,  but  quit  his  work  for  the  three  days  of  the  elec 
tion,  and  exerted  himself  actively  to  persuade  other  freedmen  to  do  the  same. 
Being  told  of  this,  I  asked  him  if  it  was  true,  and  why  he  had  left  his  friends, 
the  Radicals  ?  His  answer  was :  "  I  have  found  out  that  these  Radicals,  who 
pretend  to  be  such  great  friends  to  us  colored  people,  are  very  willing  to  let  us  do 
their  work,  but  very  unwilling  to  pay  us  for  it.  I  have  been  working  for  them 
till  I  am  tired  of  it;  for  I  can't  get  a  dollar  out  of  them.  I  find  that  all  those 
gentlemen,  who  give  me  work  and  pay  me,  are  Democrats.  Besides,  last 
summer  we  colored  people  were  trying  to  build  our  church.  We  could  not  get 
ten  cents  out  of  the  whole  Radical  party.  We  went  to  you,  and  you  let  us  have  a 
lot,  and  gave  us  fifty  dollars.  Every  other  Democrat,  that  we  applied  to,  gave  us 
something,  and  liberally,  according  to  his  means.  So  some  of  us  just  concluded 
that  hereafter  we  will  vote  with  those,  who  give  us  work  and  pay  us  for  it,  and 
who  helped  us  to  build  our  church." 

This  explains  the  object  of,  and  the  necessity  for,  the  Shellabarger  Ku-Klux 
Bill.  Similar  influences  are  producing  like  results  all  over  the  South.  The 
freedmen  are  quitting  the  Loyal  Leagues  and  the  Radical  party,  going  back  to 
their  old  and  true  friends,  and  voting,  with  them,  the  Democratic  ticket.  Some- 
tiling  must  be  done  to  force  them  back  under  the  control  of  the  "  carpet-baggers 
and  scalawags,"  or  their  votes  will  be  cast  in  1872  for  the  Democratic  nominees. 
The  Freedmen's  Bureau,  under  General  Howard's  administration,  became  so  in 
famous  and  so  odious,  at  the  North  as  well  as  at  the  South,  that  its  re-establish 
ment  is  out  of  the  question.  Hence  the  necessity  and  the  purpose  of  the  Shella 
barger  Bill ;  to  enable  General  Grant,  by  martial  law,  suspension  of  habeas  corpus  t 
and  such  other  instrumentalities  as  may  hereafter  be  devised,  to  force  the  freed 
men  to  vote  in  1872  for  the  candidates  of  the  cheap  labor  and  imperial  party. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  13! 

CHAPTER    VI. 

GENERAL    IDEA    OF  THE    COMMUNE TWO   KINDS. 

THE  commune,  then,  is  that  special  association,  to  which  eman 
cipated  races  have  tended,  universally,  among  all  nations, 
without  exception.  In  it  the  slave  has  found  himself  redeemed  from 
what  may  be  called  social  damnation.  In  it  he  became  completely 
a  man.  By  it  he  has  taken  rank  among  those  other  men,  who  had 
never  been  enslaved,  whom  poetry  called  divine,  and  history  called 
noble.  Thus,  in  the  fact  of  the  commune,  there  is  nothing  acci 
dental  or  local,  as  we  will  show  hereafter.  It  belongs  to  no  chance 
of  time  or  country.  It  has  no  predilection  for  the  East  or  the  West, 
for  India,  Greece,  Italy,  or  France.  It  is  a  phase  of  the  life  and 
development  of  the  slave  races.  On  the  one  hand,  as  there  has 
never  been  one  single  nation,  among  whom  slavery  has  not  at  one 
time  existed,  it  is  a  universal  fact ;  on  the  other,  as  there  is  no 
nation  from  among  whom  slavery  has  not  disappeared,  it  is  a  neces 
sary  fact.  Universal  and  necessary,  it  is  thus  bound  up  with  the 
very  destinies  of  society,  of  which  it  is  an  element,  a  form,  an 
inevitable  law.  In  other  words,  it  is  human. 

Evidently  it  is  not  the  word,  the  name  of  commune,  of  which 
we  say  that  it  is  universal  and  necessary,  but  the  fact,  which  that 
name  designates.  In  other  words,  we  hope  to  establish  that  this 
association,  which  was  produced  in  France,  for  example,  in  the 
twelfth  century,  and  which  we  call  commune,  is  absolutely  of  the 
same  nature  as  the  association  of  the  freed  races  of  all  antiquity;  — 
reciprocally  that  the  association  of  the  freed  races  of  all  antiquity 
has  had  absolutely  the  same  form  as  the  commune.  Thus  the 
commune  of  the  middle  ages  was  this  human  fact  of  the  association 
of  slave  races ;  this  fact,  which,  in  its  form  and  substance,  is  found 
in  the  Bible,  in  the  Odyssey,  in  the  Papyrian  Code,  and  in  ancient 
charters.  As  we  think,  one  may  follow  and  study  it  with  the  same 
results  in  all  its  successive  manifestations,  and  rely  with  as  much  rea 
son  for  its  repetition  on  a  text  from  Moses  as  on  one  from  Dumoulin. 

Perhaps  this  is  the  time  for  us  to  say  to  our  readers  that,  in  the 


132  HISTORY    OF    THE 

subject  of  this  chapter,  we  will  notably  cut  loose  from  the  opinions 
of  some  men  of  great  historic  value,  to  whose  talents  we  have 
always  been  one  of  the  first  to  render  justice.  Also,  it  is  because 
of  the  esteem  and  respect,  which  we  have  always  professed  for  their 
learning,  that  we  feel  the  necessity  of  justifying  ourselves  in  some 
manner  for  daring  to  think  differently  from  them.  But  the  liberty  of 
science  is  something  so  inviolable,  and  they  have  had  to  claim  it 
for  themselves  so  haughtily,  so  justly,  of  their  predecessors,  that  they 
will  find  it  quite  simple  and  proper  that  we  demand  it  after  them. 
Nevertheless,  although  we  find  their  works  on  this  subject  either  incom 
plete  or  erroneous,  we  recognize  in  them  too  much  patience,  merit, 
and  true  wisdom,  to  pass  on  to  the  exposition  of  our  own  ideas,  without 
giving  theirs  this  mark  of  deference,  to  mention  and  examine  them. 

There  are  principally  three  men,  who  have  treated  the  matter  of 
the  commune,  with  more  or  less  profundity :  M.  Raynouard,  M. 
Augustin  Thierry,  and  M.  Guizot.  We  ask  pardon  of  the  reader 
for  the  intentional  omission  of  a  fourth  name ;  but  we  cannot  re 
gard  M.  de  Sismondi  as  a  critical  historian  of  any  serious  value. 
Nevertheless,  we  do  not  mean  to  condemn  absolutely  and  brutally 
his  very  numerous  works  ;  for  we  recognize  a  certain  merit  in  col 
lecting  ancient  traditions  without  altering  their  signification.  But 
we  are  convinced  that  M.  de  Sismondi  has  left  pending  all  the 
great  questions  of  the  middle  ages  and  of  the  formation  of  modem 
nations  ;  and  if  it  is  true  that  he  has  taken  nothing  from  the  science 
of  history,  it  is  true  that  he  has  added  nothing  to  it. 

The  opinion  of  M.  Raynouard  is  that  the  communes  had  no 
proper  existence,  and  that  they  were  only  the  prolongation  and 
complement  of  the  municipal  system  of  the  Romans  applied  to 
Gaul.  Wherever  there  was  a  commune,  M.  Raynouard  seeks  to 
show  that  there  a  municipality  pre-existed.  As  to  the  municipali 
ties  themselves,  he  sees  in  them  cities,  conquered  by  policy  or  force, 
and  admitted  to  enjoyment  of  Roman  rights.  These  notions  are 
taken  from  a  chapter  of  the  Attic  Nights  of  Aulus  Gellius ; l  which 

1  See  this  passage :  "  Municipes  et  municipia  verba  sunt  dictu  facilia  et  usu 
obvia ;  et  neutiquam  reperias,  qui  hsec  dicat,  quin  scire  se  plane  putet,  quid 
dicat ;  sed  profecto  aliud  est,  aliud  dicitur.  .  .  .  Municipes  erg6  sunt  cives 
Komani  ex  municipiis,  LEGIBUS  suis  ET  suo  JURE  UTENTES,  muneris  tantum  cum 
populo  Romano  honorarii  participes,  a  quo  munere  capessendo  appellati  videntur, 
nullis  aliis  necessitatibus,  NEQUE  ULLA  POPULI  ROMANI  LEGE  ASTRICTO,  cum 
numquam  populus  corum  fundus  factus  esset."  (Aul.  Gell.  Noct.  Attic.,  liber  xvi., 
cap.  xiii.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  133 

we  will  hereafter  show  that  he  has  not  understood.  Besides,  M. 
Raynouard  finds  in  the  municipalities  only  a  certain  form  of  admin 
istration  invented  by  the  Romans,  and  applied  by  them  to  all  of 
Europe,  and  particularly  to  Gaul,  of  which  the  communes  were  the 
continuation,  and  which  would  never  have  existed,  if  Rome  had 
not  created  them. 

M.  Thierry  finds  that  the  communes  are  a  fact  sui  generis,  spon 
taneous,  proper  to  France,  the  same  in  the  centre  and  at  the  north 
of  France.  He  thinks  that  this  fact  is  properly  the  first  form,  which 
the  democratic  and  revolutionary  principle  has  assumed  in  modern 
history,  and  he  gives  insurrection  as  the1  point  of  departure  and  ori 
gin  of  every  commune.  The  importance  which  he  attributes  to 
insurrection  in  the  formation  of  communes  is  so  exaggerated  and 
radical,  that  he  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  conspiracy  (conjuration} 
organized  to  establish  the  communes  has  given  the  name  vi juris  to 
their  members  and  magistrates,  while  the  magistrates  of  the  munici 
pal  towns  were  called  consuls.  We  already  see  that  the  theories  of 
M.  Raynouard  and  of  M.  Augustin  Thierry  are  nearly  contradictory 
of  each  other,  and  we  will  see  that  both  are  disproved  by  the  facts. 

M.  Guizot,  with  that  profound  sagacity,  which  characterizes  his 
mind,  has  not  failed  to  recognize  that  the  communes  were  not  a 
simple  fact,  and  all  of  a  piece  ;  but  that  they  were  formed  generally 
and  in  varying  proportions  of  Roman  and  indigenous  elements. 
He  admits  at  the  same  time,  in  the  organization  of  the  towns  of  the 
middle  ages,  the  Roman  municipality  and  the  commune,  of  which 
he  comprehends  the  mechanism  in  the  same  manner  as  M.  Ray 
nouard  and  M.  Thierry.  Further,  and  this  is  the  most  important 
point  in  the  question,  he  penetrates  to  the  very  origin  of  the  com 
mune,  of  which  M.  Raynouard  has  not  spoken,  and  of  which  M. 
Thierry  only  says  vaguely,  that  it  was  the  democratic  and  revolu 
tionary  element ;  and  he  thinks  that  the  origin  of  the  communes 
was  the  slaves  of  the  lords  and  convents,  set  free  in  mass  by  numer 
ous  and  successive  emancipations.  We  will  have  occasion  to  show, 
in  the  course  of  this  book,  how  searching  was  this  glance  at  the 
formation  of  the  communes.  Only,  and  this  seems  strange  after  a 
first  observation  so  suggestive,  M.  Guizot  stops  short  at  the  com 
mune  of  the  middle  ages,  and  does  not  inquire  whether  this  com 
mune  might  not  be,  in  form  and  substance,  the  continuation  of  an 
analogous  fact,  of  which  the  history  of  ancient  peoples  offers  a 


134  HISTORY    OF    THE 

thousand  proofs.  This,  perhaps,  is  all  that  is  wanting  to  his  theory ; 
but  it  must  be  said  that  it  is  a  great  want.  Moreover,  M.  Gui2ot 
not  only  does  not  say  that  the  commune  may  be  anything  more 
than  an  accident  proper  to  modern  history ;  but  what  he  does  say 
does  not  indicate  that  he  had  that  idea.  It  is  singular  that  he,  who 
has  so  clearly  explained  the  municipal  system  of  the  Romans,  being 
halfway  on  the  road  to  a  great  idea,  should  not  follow  it  to  the  end. 
Has  he  not  observed  that  the  communal  system  of  France  has  no 
other  origin,  or  nature,  or  form  ? 

We  hope  to  show  clearly,  in  the  course  of  this  book,  what  is  erro 
neous  in  the  first  two  of  these  theories,  and  what  is  incomplete  in 
the  third.  We  think  that  we  will  not  be  supposed  to  be  inspired 
by  a  desire  to  find  errors  in  the  works  of  another.  We  have  an 
object  much  less  personal  and  much  more  worthy.  It  is  not  our 
fault,  if  human  science  is  a  fully  sown  field,  where  it  is  impossible  to 
plant  one  idea  without  digging  up  another.  We  are  under  this  ne 
cessity.  Perhaps  we  may  pull  up  a  stalk  of  wheat  to  plant  a  thistle. 
Let  the  reader  judge.  We  only  desire  to  show  our  intention  in  all 
its  disinterestedness  and  purity.  Besides,  we  will  only  combat  the 
theories  we  have  just  mentioned,  as  we  complete  our  own.  The  best 
and  most  sincere  way  to  criticize  an  idea  is  to  replace  it  by  another. 

We  have  reached  the  point,  in  our  subject,  to  say  that  the  com 
mune,  among  all  peoples,  is  the  political  and  administrative  associ 
ation  of  slaves.  We  have  prepared  and  announced  this  fact  rather 
than  proved  it.  What  we  have  said  shows  that  it  is  possible  and  even 
probable.  It  remains  for  us  to  produce  what  will  render  it  certain. 

Before  entering  upon  the  detail  of  the  formation  of  communes, 
and  to  remove  some  difficulties,  which  spring  up  from  the  develop 
ment  of  our  subject,  we  should  say  that  there  are  in  history  two 
kinds  of  communes,  of  which  the  difference  is  perhaps  more  ap 
parent  than  real ;  but  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  and  characterize 
them,  so  that  their  juxtaposition  may  create  no  mistake  or  confusion. 
We  will  call  one  the  spontaneous  commune,  and  the  other  the  artificial 
commune ;  and  these  are  the  ideas  we  attach  to  these  two  designations. 

We  call  a  spontaneous  commune,  that  which  was  originally  formed 
spontaneously,  naturally,  by  the  sole  fact  of  the  agglomeration  on 
one  spot  of  a  certain  number  of  freedmen,  who  had  obtained  or 
assumed  the  right  to  govern  themselves.  We  call  an  artificial  com 
mune  that,  of  which  the  mechanism  has  been  intentionally  imitated 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  135 

from  another,  and  which  was  not  produced,  like  the  first,  without  a 
model  or  premeditated  design. 

It  is  very  important  to  make  the  distinction  between  these  two 
communes,  for  this  reason :  Wherever  a  commune  was  formed  of 
itself,  without  reference  to  any  theory  and  without  being  the  work 
of  any  legislator,  we  may  be  certain  that  those,  who  composed  it, 
were  freedmen ;  because,  as  we  will  hereafter  establish,  the  com 
mune  is  the  government,  to  which  the  slave  races  invariably  come. 
But  when,  on  the  contrary,  a  commune  was  imported  into  any 
place,  of  deliberate  purpose,  by  a  conqueror  or  legislator,  it  may 
very  well  have  been  that  those,  to  whom  it  was  applied,  or  who 
adopted  it,  were  not  freedmen,  or  even  they  may  have  been 
people  of  noble  blood.  For  example,  when  the  Romans,  hav 
ing  conquered  Europe,  had  applied  to  the  smallest  boroughs  of 
Gaul  or  Greece  their  form  of  government,  which  was  the  communal 
or  municipal,  it  often  happened  that  the  families,  which  accepted  or 
submitted  to  this  government,  were  rich,  ancient,  powerful,  glorious. 
Thus  in  the  first  years  of  the  empire,  the  decurions,  that  is  to  say, 
the  municipal  officers,  were  persons  of  great  distinction.  This  came 
from  the  fact  that  all  Europe  was  brought  under  the  form  of  the 
Roman  government,  without  regard  to  its  origin,  taking  it  as  it  was 
without  reference  to  the  past.  Nevertheless,  this  government,  which 
then  suited  the  greatest,  proudest,  and  most  illustrious  people  of  the 
world, commenced  by  a  collection  of  fugitive  slaves  on  Mount  Palatine. 

When  then  we  say,  that  every  commune  invariably  corresponds 
with  a  population  of  the  slave,  race,  we  speak  of  communes,  which 
were  originally  formed  spontaneously,  and  not  of  those,  which, 
after  having  been  slowly  modified,  corrected,  ameliorated  gradually, 
by  revolution  after  revolution,  came  at  last  some  fine  day  to  be 
applied,  as  a  model  government,  to  a  free  people.  Certainly  the 
Roman  government  was  not  formed  of  slaves  under  Julius  Caesar ; 
but  it  was  under  Romulus.  ^  <•  ^ 

Ancient  history  is  full  of  instances  of  certain  cities,  which  have 
been  suddenly  struck  with  admiration  for  the  government  of  some 
other  city,  and  were  not  satisfied  until  it  was  given  to  them.  They 
did  not  ask  from  what  point  this  government  started,  but  what 
point  it  had  reached ;  not  what  it  had  been  formerly,  but  what  it 
was  then.  They  took  no  account  of  its  first  trials,  its  experiments, 
its  revolutions.  They  regarded  only  its  last  phase  and  its  great 

0'  3  tf^M^Ot-  <i  u^T&Ar  4v>v 

T/  \  U 


136  HISTORY    OF    THE 

progress.  Thus  Aulus  Gellius  relates  that  the  little  city  of  Ceres, 
toward  the  end  of  the  last  invasions  of  the  Gauls  into  Italy,  full  of 
admiration  for  the  mechanism  of  the  Roman  Republic,  asked  of 
the  senate  permission  to  adopt  it.1  The  city  of  Ceres  did  not 
inquire  as  to  the  successive  changes  this  government  had  gone 
through.  It  did  not  dream  of  the  seven  kings  of  Rome,  nor  of  the 
revolution,  which  drove  them  out,  nor  of  the  mutinies  of  the  people, 
nor  of  the  aggrandizement  and  ennobling  of  the  senate.  It  saw  a 
government  well  understood,  at  the  same  time  active  and  conserva 
tive,  multiplicate  and  consolidated,  and  it  desired  to  have  one  on  the 
same  plan.  Thenceforward  the  commune  of  Ceres  was  not  a  com 
mune  of  freedmen,  since  the  Roman  government,  which  it  imitated, 
was  applied  without  distinction  to  its  entire  population;  but  its 
ancient  government,  its  primitive  commune,  which  had  been  spon 
taneous  in  its  origin,  and  the  customs  of  which  it  preserved  in 
taking  the  Roman  form,  had  been  a  commune  of  freedmen. 

Aulus  Gellius  says  in  effect,  in  a  passage  which  we  have  quoted 
above,  that  the  cities,  which,  like  Ceres,  had  adopted  the  form  of 
the  Roman  government  and  become  municipia,  preserved  neverthe 
less  their  own  laws,  which  can  only  be  understood  of  the  civil, 
criminal,  and  commercial  laws,  which  were  applied  by  their  muni 
cipal  councils  or  by  their  magistrates.2  This  proves  that  the  muni- 
cipia,  before  existing  as  an  imitation  of  Rome,  had  existed  in  their 
own  name  and  according  to  their  special  form.  Aulus  Gellius 
adds  that  from  his  time  the  Roman  scabbard  had  used  the  national 
sword,  and  that  the  municipia  had  forgotten  their  own  ancient  cus 
toms,  so  far  as  not  to  know  how  to  use  them.3  They  had  become, 
as  Aulus  Gellius  expresses  it,  little  Romes,  after  the  likeness  of  the 
great  Rome.* 

We  can  now  see,  by  this   analysis   of   the  passage  from  Aulus 

1  Primes  autem  municipes  sine  suffragii  jure  Cerites  esse  factos  accepimus. 
(Aul.  Gell.,  lib.  xvi.,  cap.  xiii.) 

*  Legibus  suis  et  suo  jure  utentes.  (Aul.  Gel.,  lib.  xvi.,  cap.  xiii.) 

8  Obscura  obliterataque  sunt  municipiorum  jura,  quibus  uti  jam  per  ignorantiam 
non  queunt.  (Aul.  Gell.,  lib.  xvi.,  cap.  xiii.) 

4  Quasi  effigies  parvse  simulacraque  Romie  esse  quaedam  videntur.  (Aul.  Gell., 
lib.  xvi.,  cap.  xiii.) 

Later,  Justinian  justified  in  these  terms  that  imitation  of  the  Roman  form,  which 
was  imposed  on  all  the  cities  of  the  empire  :  "  Secundum  Salvii  Juliani  scripturam, 
quoe  indicat  debere  omnes  civitates  consuetudines  Romoe  sequi,  qua?  est  caput 
orbis  terrarum,  non  ipsam  alias  civitates. "(Prefat.  Prim,  de  Concept.  Digestor,  ad 
Tribonian.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  Ij/ 

Gellius,  quoted  by  M.  Raynouard,  that  he  has  not  been  well  under 
stood.  In  effect,  the  theory  drawn  by  M.  Raynouard  from  this 
passage  rests  on  the  idea,  that  the  communes  of  the  middle  ages  did 
not  exist  of  themselves,  and  that  they  were  only  the  continuation 
and  revival  of  the  ancient  Roman  munidpia.  Now  M.  Raynouard 
has  not  observed  that  the  cities,  which,  like  Ceres,  became  muni 
dpia  in  taking  the  Roman  form,  were  previously  communes,  on  their 
own  account,  with  their  own  special  and  national  form,  and  using 
their  own  ancient  laws,  even  after  they  had  adopted  that  form  ; 
whence  it  evidently  follows  that  it  was  not  impossible  for  communes 
to  be  spontaneously  organized  in  the  middle  ages,  without  reviving 
the  ancient  munidpia,  since  they  were  organized  in  the  cities  of 
primitive  Italy,  before  they  had  the  idea  of  grafting  the  Roman 
government  on  the  trunk  of  their  own  history. 

What  has  been  seen  in  Italy  of  fancies,  which  certain  cities  have 
taken  for  another,  had  also  been  seen  in  Greece,  and  instances  can 
be  cited  of  munidpia  organized  with  the  form  of  the  Athenian  gov 
ernment.  In  the  discourse,  which  Thucydides  makes  Pericles  pro 
nounce,  at  the  funeral  solemnities  celebrated  by  the  Athenians  in 
honor  of  the  soldiers,  who  fell  in  the  first  year  of  the  Peloponne- 
sian  war,  it  is  formally  said  that  the  government  of  Athens  served 
as  a  model  for  other  cities.1  Some  years  before  that  war,  and  in 
the  height  of  the  power  of  the  Athenians,  they  went  to  Samos,  and 
there  established,  as  conquerors,  the  form  of  their  own  republic.2 
Besides,  it  suffices  to  recall  the  custom  of  the  ancient  cities  of  Greece 
of  having  their  laws  made  by  a  philosopher,  or  of  sending  to  search 
for  them  in  some  neighboring  city,  to  comprehend  how  there  must 
have  been  among  them  artificial  communes,  which  were  superim 
posed  on  the  spontaneous  communes. 

We  have  now  said  enough  about  each  of  these  two  kinds  of  com 
munes,  to  pass  on  to  the  development  of  our  subject,  without  fear 
of  confusion. 


yap  TroAirtia  ov  ^rt\ovarj   rovj  T&V   rreXaj   vo/jouj,  TrapatJayfia  Si  av.-oi  fia\\oi>  ovre$ 
vot  erepovj.   (Thucyd.  Hist.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xxxvii.) 
ovv  AOrjvdloi  £j  Zdpov  vaval  naoapaKovra,  dn^oKpariav  Karsurrjaav,     (Thucyd. 

Hist.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  cxv.) 


138  HISTORY    OF    THE 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    FRENCH    COMMUNE. 

IT  is  of  the  greatest  importance,  for  the  proper  understanding  of 
the  matter  to  be  treated  of  in  this  chapter,  to  understand  ex 
actly,  first,  what  constitutes  a  commune,  and  then  the  different 
names  by  which  the  communes  are  designated  by  the  charters  and 
by  historians. 

The  right  of  commune  consisted  in  the  privilege  granted  to  the 
inhabitants  of  a  borough  or  city  to  govern  themselves,  instead  of 
being  governed  by  the  officers  of  a  lord,  lay  or  ecclesiastic,  baron 
or  abbd. 

The  confirmation  of  the  charter  of  commune  granted  by  Hugo, 
Count  de  la  Marche  et  d'Angouleme,  to  the  inhabitants  of  Ahun,  in 
the  year  1268,  expresses  exactly  in  three  words  in  what  a  commune 
consisted. 

"  ApprobamuS)  said  the  count,  consulatum,  sigillum,  et  communi 
tatem."  J  Consulatum,  that  is  to  say,  administration  ;  sigillum,  that 
is  to  say,  the  dispensation  of  justice ;  communitatem,  that  is  to  say, 
the  public  treasury,  the  area  communis.  The  inhabitants  of  a  city, 
who  obtained  or  took  these  three  things,  had,  properly  speaking,  a 
commune.  So,  to  take  away  from  a  city  the  right  of  having  a  pub 
lic  seal  and  magistrates,  or  the  consulate,  was  to  take  away  its  com 
mune.  This  was  done  to  the  commune  of  Laon,  by  decree  of  the 
Parliament  of  La  Toussaint,  in  the  year  I295,2  and  to  the  city  of 
Paris  by  King  Charles  VI.,  in  the  year  1382,  after  the  sedition  of 
the  Maillotins. 

If  a  city  had  the  right  of  self-government,  it  had  a  commune.  It 
may  be  said  that  certain  cities  had  a  commune,  more  or  less  than 
others,  in  this  sense,  that  their  right  of  dispensing  justice,  for  exam 
ple,  was  more  or  less  extensive.  One  city  had  only  civil  jurisdic- 

1  Approbamus  expresse  et  confirmamus  hominibus  villse  nostrae  Agedunensis  . . . 
consulatem,  sigillum  et  communitatem.  (Charter  of  Hugo,  Count  de  la  Marche, 
for  the  franchise  of  Ahun.  La  Thomassiere,  Local  Customs,  ch.  cvi.) 

8Olim.,  vol.  ii.,  fol.  108. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  139 

tion.  Another  had  the  right  to  take  cognizance  of  affairs  both  civil 
and  criminal.  This  was  the  case  with  most  of  the  great  cities  of 
the  kingdom,  at  least  until  the  Edict  of  Moulins,  which  left  the 
cognizance  of  civil  affairs  only  to  the  municipalities  of  Toulouse, 
Rheims,  Boulogne,  and  Angouleme,  which  proved  that  they  had 
possessed  this  right  since  the  time  of  the  Romans.1 

The  name,  designating  this  privilege,  granted  or  taken  by  a  city, 
of  governing  itself  and  being  perfectly  independent,  within  the  terms 
of  its  charter,  varied  in  different  localities.  Sometimes  it  was  com- 
munio /2  sometimes  communia;*  sometimes  communitas;'  sometimes 
franchisia;*  sometimes  consuetudines ;*  sometimes  libertas /7  some 
times  burgesta*  Nevertheless,  whatever  the  difference  in  name,  the 
substance  of  the  thing  remained  the  same.  It  was  the  right  of  self- 
government,  or,  as  the  charter  of  Ahun  says,  consulatum,  sigillum  et 
communitas. 

On  the  other  hand,  whatever  may  have  been  the  source  of  the 
right  of  self-government  possessed  by  a  city,  this  right  was  none 
the  less  a  right  of  commune,  whether  it  came  from  a  lord,  or  from 
the  king ;  whether  it  was  a  grant  or  a  purchase ;  whether  obtained  by 
humble  remonstrances  or  by  open  rebellion. 

It  is  thus  seen  that  M.  Augustin  Thierry  has  committed  two 
great  errors  in  what  he  has  written  about  the  communes :  first,  in 

1  The  Edict  of  Moulins,  issued  by  Charles  IX.  in  1556,  was  intended  to  re 
strict  the  rights  of  the  municipal  magistrates,  for  the  profit  of  the  royal  magis 
trates.     The  Chancellor  de  1'Hospital  was  the  promoter  of  it.      This  edict,  the 
meaning  of  which  was  afterward  greatly  extended,  was  one  of  the  most  power 
ful  causes,  which  more  lately  produced  the  consolidation  of  the  administration 
of  the  kingdom. 

2  Communio  autem,  novum  ac  pessimum  nomen.  (Guib.  abb.  de  Novigent,  lib. 
iii.,  cap.  vii.,  apud  Script,  rer.  Franc.,  t.  xii.) 

3  Concessimus  communiam  habendam.  (Charter  of  the  commune  of  Cerny.  La 
Thomassiere,  Local  Customs,  chap,  civ.) 

*  Communitas  habitatorum  villae  Parisiensis.  (Decree  of  Parliament  of  I  June< 
1316.  Olim.,  vol.  iii.,  folio  154,  cited  by  De  la  Mare  in  his  treatise  on  Civil 
Government,  t.  i.,  p.  149.) 

5Frater  meus  franchisiam  voluit  et  concessit.  (Charter  of  the  city  of  Lury. 
La  Thomass.,  Local  Customs,  chap.  Ivi.) 

6  Subscriptas  consuetudines  habendas   in    perpetuum  concedimus.  (Charter  of 
the  city  of  Duns  le  Roi.     La  Thomass.,  Local  Customs,  chap,  xlviii.) 

7  Hominibus  commorantibus  apud  Cellas  talem  concessi  libertatem.  (Privileges 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Celles.      Charter  of  Robert  de  Courtenay,  1216.      La  Tho 
mass.,  Local  Customs,  chap.  Iviii.) 

8  In  conservationem  jurium   burgesice  hujusmodi.  (Chapter  of  the  borough  of 
Aigues-Mortes.     La  Thomass.,  Local  Customs,  chap,  cv.) 


I4O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

refusing  to  recognize  a  commune  where  the  name  of  communia  was 
not  to  be  found ;  secondly,  in  asserting  that  every  commune  sprang 
from  a  rebellion.  First,  the  commune  of  Aigues-Mortes,  estab 
lished  by  Charles  V.,  in  1373,  was  as  complete  a  commune  as  could 
be,1  and  nevertheless  it  was  not  called  communia,  but  burgesia. 
Next,  the  commune  of  Cerny,  which  was  called  communia,  did  not 
spring  from  a  rebellion,  and  its  members  were  called  jurati,  although 
they  had  never  conspired.2  Besides,  as  La  Thomassiere  observes, 
the  name  of  juratus  m  jurat  was  universally  given  to  the  magistrates 
of  the  communes  of  La  Guienne.3 

It  is  important  again  to  notice  an  historical  error  very  common 
among  those,  who  have  treated  of  the  communes.  We  refer  to  the 
common  opinion  as  to  the  date  of  their  institution.  M.  Augustin 
Thierry  has  with  much  reason  reproved  the  authors  of  the  Charter 
of  1814,  who  in  the  preamble  have  attributed  the  establishment  of 
communes  to  Louis  the  Fat.  Perhaps  we  should  now  reprove  M. 
Augustin  Thierry  himself  for  having  believed,  with  so  many  others, 
that  the  formation  of  communes  dated  from  the  twelfth  century. 
The  formation  of  communes,  as  we  believe,  does  not  date  pre 
cisely  from  any  century,  because  it  dates  from  all.  It  is  a  permanent 
fact  of  the  history  of  all  peoples,  and  for  this  reason :  The  com 
mune,  as  we  have  already  said  and  will  presently  clearly  establish, 
is  the  government,  to  which  the  emancipated  slaves  in  every  country 
attain.  Now  in  Europe,  from  the  commencement  of  society  to  the 
1 5th  century,  slaves  have  been  constantly  obtaining  their  liberty, 
and  consequently,  communes  have  been  constantly  forming,  under 
one  of  the  names  mentioned  above.  We  find  in  every  century  of 
the  history  of  the  middle  ages  privileges  more  or  less  extensive  ac 
corded  to  different  cities,  that  is  to  say,  a  self-government  of  com- 

1  The  charter  of  Charles  V.  says    expressly  that   the    city  of  Aigues-Mortes 
should  have  the  same  privileges  and  franchises  as  the  city  of  Montpelier :  "  Sta- 
tuimus    edicto  irrevocabili  .  .  .  burgenses   predictos  .  .  .  vocari  burgenses  Aqua- 
rum  Mortuarum,  prout  burgenses  Montispessulani  antea  vocabantur ;  volentes  ut 
universi  et  singuli  cujuscumque  conditionis  et  status  qui  voluerint  se  burgenses 
nostros  constituere,  modo  et  forma  consuetis   et   debitis,  hoc   facere  possint  in 
dicta  villa   Aquarum    Mortuarum,    prout   in    dicto   loco   Montispessulani."  (La 
Thomass.,  Local  Customs,  ch.  cv.) 

2  Majori  et  juratis  .  .  .  satisfactionem  faciet.  (Charter  of  the  commune  of  Cerny. 
La  Thomass.,  Local  Customs,  ch.  civ.) 

3  The  jurats,  which  is  the  ordinary  name  in  the  province  of  La  Guienne  of  the 
magistrates  of  the  people.  (La  Thomass.,  Local  Customs,  ch.  xix.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  14! 

mimes  confirmed  or  established.  For  example,  a  letter  of  Theodoric, 
King  of  Italy,  in  the  year  510,  confirms  the  immunities  previously 
granted  to  the  city  of  Marseilles.1  A  formula  of  Marculfus  speaks 
of  communal  property,  and  thus  proves  that  the  word  commune  itself 
existed  toward  the  end  of  the  sixth  century.2  An  act  of  sale  of  the 
year  877  mentions  a  communal 'way •,  and  proves  that  the  word  com 
mune  was  likewise  used  in  the  ninth.3  A  diploma  of  Charlemagne, 
of  the  year  777,  confirms  the  privileges  of  a  place  called  Salona,  in 
the  bishopric  of  Metz.4  A  charter  of  Pons,  Count  d'Alby,  of  the 
year  797,  declares  free  a  borough  called  Viancium.5  Lastly,  a 
charter  of  the  3oth  of  March,  1068,  mentions  Jane,  wife  of  Pierre  de 
Coq,  burgher  of  Pontoise.6  The  establishment  of  communes,  that 
is  to  say,  of  the  self-government  of  freedmen,  is  then,  as  we  have 
said,  a  permanent  fact  of  history.  All  that  can  be  said  of  the 
twelfth  century,  is  that  it  was  the  precise  moment  when  the  greater 
part  of  the  populations  passing  from  slavery  found  themselves 
organized  for  self-government ;  a  commune  formed  then  set  the 
example  for  a  crowd  of  others.  Thus  there  was  a  time  in  the 
history  of  Greece,  when  all  the  cities  wished  for  a  commune  like 
that  of  Athens,  and  another  time  in  the  history  of  Italy,  when  all 
the  cities  desired  a  commune  like  that  of  Rome. 

We  repeat,  the  commune  is  nothing  else  than  the  self-govern 
ment  of  the  freed  races,  whatever  may  have  been,  in  other  respects, 
the  origin,  extent,  or  name  of  that  government ;  whether  it  was 
taken  by  force,  granted,  or  purchased;  whether  absolute  or  limited; 
whether  called  communio,  or  communia,  or  communitas,  or  liber- 
tas,  or  consuetudines,  or  franchisia,  or  burgesia.  Communes  were 
formed  all  along  the  history  of  peoples,  as  slaves  attained  their  lib 
erty,  and  the  grave  question  of  knowing  to  what  precise  epoch  the 
establishment  of  communes  dates  back,  whether  to  Louis  the  Fat, 

1  Cassiodori  variar.,  lib.  iv.,  epist.  xxvi. 

2  Cum  terris,  silvis,  campis,  pratis,  pascuis,  communiis,  necnon  et  mancipiis. 
(Formul.  Marculf.,  a  Lindenbrogio  edit.,  No.  58.) 

3  Speaking  of   the  boundaries  of  a  piece  of  land :  De  uno   fronte   centerius 
communalis  pergit ;  de  alio  vero  fronte  strada  publica  pergit.  (Perard.  Recueil  de 
pieces  curieuses,  p.  155,  156.) 

*  D.  Calmet,  History  of  Lorraine,  t.  i.  287. 

5  Catel.,  Counts  of  Toulouse,  p.  100. 

6  History  of  the  Curacy  of  Pontoise  k  Venin,  p.  22. 


142  HISTORY    OF    THE 

or  Philip  the  First,  is  a  scientific  puerility,  into  which  the  critic  of 
our  day  should  take  care  not  to  fall. 

The  communes,  which  were  formed,  confirmed,  or  extended  in 
France,  in  all  the  course  of  our  history,  were  of  two  kinds.  One, 
the  least  numerous,  were  a  remnant  of  the  Roman  communes,  or 
of  the  Roman  municipia,  (for  these  two  expressions  are  identical,) 
with  which  Gaul  was  covered  during  the  golden  era  of  the  empire. 
The  other  was  the  aboriginal,  national  communes,  which  sprang  up 
spontaneously  upon  the  soil,  and  were  formed  little  by  little,  year 
by  year,  as  the  slaves  attained  their  liberty. 

The  communes  of  Roman  origin  were  themselves  of  two  kinds : 
one  entire,  having  resisted,  without  dissolution,  all  the  waves  of 
invasion,  and  having  preserved  intact  their  primitive  and  original 
form ;  the  others,  mutilated,  defaced,  scarce  recognizable,  being 
nothing  more  than  a  ruin  marked  only  by  some  remnant  of  an  in 
scription,  rising  pitifully  to  the  surface  of  new  manners,  like  a  half- 
buried  stone  of  a  monument  which  has  long  since  disappeared. 

As  is  well  believed,  the  Roman  communes,  which  passed  through 
the  middle  ages,  were  few  in  number.  But  few  suspect  that  when, 
in  the  year  1556,  the  Edict  of  Moulins  came  to  take  away  from  the 
magistrates  the  right  of  civil  jurisdiction,  on  the  ground  that  they 
held  it  by  grant,  and  that  the  king  could  take  away  what  the  king 
had  given,  some  of  them  resisted  the  edict,  replying  and  proving 
that  they  were  more  ancient  than  the  French  monarchy.  The 
commune  of  Rheims  was  the  first  which  ventured  upon  this  memor 
able  struggle.  The  Parliament  of  Paris  recognized  the  legitimacy 
of  their  pretensions  by  decree  of  the  25th  May,  I568.1  Boulogne 
and  Angouleme  followed  the  example  of  Rheims.  The  pretensions 
of  Boulogne  were  recognized  to  be  founded  in  right  by  the  decree 
of  parliament  of  January,  1571.  Those  of  Angouleme  by  decree 
of  the  year  1572,  which,  however,  did  not  prevent  the  execution  of 
the  Edict  of  Moulins,2  by  letters-patent.  Toulouse  was  treated  in 
the  same  way,  that  is  to  say,  deprived  by  letters-patent  of  the  right 
of  civil  jurisdiction,  although  she  proved  that  her  magistracy,  or 
capitoulat,  was  anterior  to  Clovis.8 

1  Borgies,  Discourse  on  the  Antiquity  of  the  Magistracy  of  the  City  of  Rheims. 

2  Dubos,  History  of  the  Establishment  of  the  French  Monarchy  in  Gaul,  lib. 
vi.,  ch.  xii. 

8  La  Faille,  Annals  of  Toulouse,  t.  i.,  p.  55. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  143 

The  communes,  that  were  only  a  debris  of  the  Roman  munici 
palities,  and  in  which  a  young  and  vigorous  franchise  of  the  mid 
dle  ages  was  grafted  on  the  old  trunk  of  a  curia,  were  very  numer 
ous.  M.  Raynouard  cites  nearly  a  hundred  in  two  chapters  only  of 
his  History  of  Municipal  Rights; 1  and  M.  de  Savigny,  in  his  curious 
and  patient  work  on  the  History  of  the  Roman  Law  in  the  middle 
ages,  cites  many  examples  of  ancient  Roman  cities  becoming  French 
communes.  We  refer,  on  this  point,  to  the  two  books  we  have  men 
tioned,  having  no  taste  for  treating  questions  which  have  been  already 
treated,  and  well  treated,  and  we  pass  on  to  the  communes  of  purely 
French  origin,  and  which  arose  as  the  freedmen  accumulated  on  some 
point  of  territory. 

Nothing  is  more  frequent  in  the  history  of  the  middle  ages  than 
the  formation  of  communes  with  men  recently  emerged  from  slavery. 
We  have,  therefore,  plenty  of  examples  to  choose  from.  The  re 
volt  of  the  burghers  of  Bruges,  and  the  assassination  of  Charles  the 
Good,  Count  of  Flanders,  in  1127,  was  one  of  the  events  of  demo 
cratic  nature  and  intent,  which  resounded  most  in  the  twelfth  cen 
tury.  Now,  the  prevot  of  the  Chapter  of  Bruges,  the  first  and 
richest  of  their  burghers,  the  author  and  instigator  of  the  sedition, 
Bertulphe,  was  claimed  by  the  count  as  a  slave,  enjoying,  it  is  true, 
a  kind  of  liberty,  but  only  by  favor  and  complaisance.  It  is  cer 
tain,  on  the  one  hand,  by  the  inquest,  which  the  count  caused  to 
be  made,  that  Bertulphe  could  not  produce  any  act  of  emancipation, 
and  it  is  true,  on  the  other,  that  he  was  so  much  a  slave,  although 
he  had  become  prevot?  that  is,  grand  judge  in  all  the  extent  of 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  chapter,  that  a  cavalier,  who  had  married 
one  of  his  nieces,  had  himself  declared  a  slave  at  the  end  of  a  year 
and  a  day,  following  the  custom  of  the  country.2  The  great  revolt 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Veselay  against  the  Abbe  and  Chapter  of  St. 
Marie  Madeleine  de  Veselay,  in  1152,  also  offers  the  spectacle  af  a 
tumultuous  association  of  serfs  and  slaves,  who  wished  to  obtain  the 
legal  association  of  a  commune  ;  and,  in  the  insurrectionary  and 
provisional  municipality  which  was  formed,  the  prevot  Simon  was 
reclaimed  by  the  chapter  as  a  slave.3 

1Book  3,  chap,  viii.,  xi. 

2  Vita  Caroli  Boni,  auctor  Galbert.  Brugens.  notar.  Apud  Script,  rer.  Franc.,  t. 
xiu.,  p.  347. 

3  Hugues  de  Poitiers,  Chronicles  of  Ve'selay. 


144  HISTORY    OF    THE 

La  Thomassiere  says :  There  are  few  cities  in  the  kingdom  that  do 
not  bear  the  marks  of  this  servitude,  and  that  have  not  been  re 
deemed  from  it  by  the  grant  of  privileges,  which  conferred  citizen 
ship  upon  them.  It  is  especially  in  the  customs  established  among 
the  freedmen,  who,  having  long  had  to  contend  with  family  interests 
and  the  rentage  of  land,  before  being  completely  free,  had  need  of  a 
special  law,  not  being  able  to  take  advantage  of  the  civil  law;  — it  is 
especially  in  the  customs,  we  say,  that  we  find  numberless  and  unde 
niable  traces  of  the  ancient  slavery  of  the  burghers,  who  constituted 
the  communes.  Thus,  the  communal  charter  granted  by  Philip  Au 
gustus  to  the  inhabitants  of  St.  Jean  d'Angely,  in  1204,  accords  to 
them  the  right  of  giving  their  children  in  marriage,  and  of  making  a 
will,  which  clearly  proves  that  they  did  not  previously  have  this  right, 
and  that  they  had  been  slaves.1  And  thus  another  charter,  granted 
by  Philip  Augustus  to  the  burghers  of  the  city  of  Bourges,  in  1197, 
also  gives  to  them  the  right  of  devising  by  will,  which  ranks  them 
in  the  same  category  with  those  of  St.  Jean  d'Angely.2  Likewise, 
a  charter  granted  to  the  inhabitants  of  Chateau  Roux,  on  the  i5th  No 
vember,  1370,  by  Guy  II.,  Lord  of  Chauvigny  and  Chateauroux,  con 
cedes  to  them  the  rights  of  inheritance ; 3  and  even  the  burghers  of 
Paris  themselves  could  only  have  the  guardianship  of  their  children 
and  parents,  by  special  grant  recorded  in  the  book  of  royal  ordi 
nances  in  the  office  of  the  Prdvot  of  Merchants.4  So,  the  inhabitants 
of  the  faubourg  St.  Germain,  who  made  part  of  the  ancient  commune 
of  Paris,  communitas  habitatorum  villa  Parisiensis,  in  the  words  of 
a  decree  of  parliament  of  the  ist  June,  1316,  which  we  have  quoted, 
were  set  free  by  Frere  Thomas  de  Mauleon,  Abbe"  of  St.  Germain, 
in  consideration  of  the  sum  of  two  hundred  Paris  livres.5  So,  the 
plebeians,  roturiers,  in  mass,  were  degraded  by  certain  customs,  as 
for  example,  the  custom  of  Bretagne,  which  denied  them  the  right 

1  Cartul.  de  Philippe  Auguste,  p.  998. 

2  ...  Noverint  universi  prsesentes  .  .  .  nos  bene  velle  ut  quando  aliquis  ex  burgen- 
sibus  nostris  Biturigensibus  moriens  legatum  suum  fecerit,  ipse,  si  voluerit,  par- 
tern  suam  et  partem  puerorum  suorum  in  manibus  alicujus  amicorum  suorum  mittat. 
(Cited  by  La  Thomassiere,  Local  Customs,  chap,  xlviii.) 

3  Item,  que  les  dits  habitans  pourraint  et  pourront  succeder  Pun  a  1'autre,  en 
quelque  degre,  ordonner  de  leur  biens,  meubles,  heritages,  a  leur  pure  et  liberale 
volonte*.  (Cited  by  La  Thomassiere,  Local  Customs,  chap.  Ixxv.) 

4Bacquet,  Des  Francs  Fiefs,  part,  i.,  chap  x.,  No.  6. 

5  Renat.  Chopin.  De  Moribus  Parisiens,  lib.  ii.,  tit.  viii.,  where  he  quote^  the 
charter. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  145 

of  testifying  on  certain  occasions.1  So  a  clause  of  the  charter  ac 
corded  by  the  Bishop  Geoffrey  to  the  city  of  Amiens,  under  penalty 
of  a  fine,  forbids  calling  the  burghers  serfs ;  whence  it  follows  that 
they  had  only  recently  ceased  to  be  such.2  So,  Roger  de  Rosoy, 
having  become  Bishop  of  Laon,  in  1177,  applied  to  Louis  VII. , 
praying  him  to  have  pity  on  his  church,  by  abolishing  the  commune 
of  Laon,  which  he  calls  the  commune  of  his  serfs.8 

Behold  a  last  example  of  what  we  have  said  in  relation  to  the 
formation  of  communes  by  slaves,  and  we  limit  ourselves  to  this, 
among  many  others,  because  it  generalizes  our  principle,  and  con 
firms  it  theoretically.  It  is  a  passage  of  Guibert,  Abbe  of  Nogent, 
quoted  and  translated  by  M.  Thierry,  in  his  fourteenth  letter  on  the 
History  of  France,  but  translated  with  an  essential  omission,  which 
we  are  going  to  supply  :  "  Commune,  new  and  execrable  word,  sig 
nifies  that  all  those,  who  are  subject  to  poll  tax,  shall  only  pay  once 
a  year,  to  their  masters,  the  customary  dues  of  serfdom ;  and  as  to 
the  other  arbitrary  taxes  customarily  inflicted  upon  serfs,  they  are 
altogether  exempt. ' '  *  We  see  clearly  by  this  passage,  applicable  to 
all  the  communes,  that  those,  who  formed  them,  were  previously 
subjected  to  a  poll  tax,  were  serfs,  and  had  masters. 

It  now  remains  for  us  to  show  rapidly,  and  as  a  matter  of  second 
ary  importance,  the  form  of  the  communes. 

We  distinguish  in  the  communes  two  sorts  of  persons,  the  burghers 
and  the  dwellers  (nianants}.  The  burghers  were  members  of  the 

1  Nul  roturier  doit-etre  re§u  en  temoignage  pour  fait  de  noblesse,  de  personne, 
ni  de  fiefs.  (Cout.  Nouv.  de  Bretagne,  art.  152.) 

2 Guibert.  Abbat.  de  Novigent,  de  Vita  sua.  Apud  Script,  rer.  Franc.,  t.  xii. 

3  It  was,  in  fact,  a  commune  formed  by  the  serfs  of  the  Bishop  of  Laon.     "Ho 
mines  de  Lauduno  .  . .  communiam  ordinarunt  habere,  et  sic  perperam  cogitantes 
a  jugo  servitutis  cervices  suas  et  suorum  heredum  excutere  arbitrati  sunt.     At 
Rogerius,  egregius  Laudanensis  episcopus  regis  presentiam  adiit,  et  ecclesiae  suae 
misereretur,  communiam   servorum    suorum   delendo,  omnibus    modis    exoravit. 
(Chronic,  anonym.  Canonici.  Laudurens.  Apud  Script,  rer.  Franc.,  t.  xiii.,  p.  677.) 

4  Communio  autem,  novum  ac  pessimum  nomen,  sic  se  habet,  ut  capita  censi 
omnes  solitum  servitutis  debitum  dominis  semel  in  anno  solvant . .  .  caeterae  cen- 
suum  exactiones,  quae  servis  infligi  solent,  omnibus  modis  vacent.  (Guibert.  Ab 
bat.  de  Vita  sua,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  vii.,  Apud  Script,  rer.  Franc,  t.  xii.) 

See  the  translation  of  M.  Thierry,  which  will  explain  our  idea  perfectly  by  the 
omission  found  there.  "  Commune  is  a  word,  etc.,  which  signifies  that  taxable 
people  paid  only  once  a  year  to  their  lord  the  dues  which  they  owed  him."  It 
is  to  be  remarked,  that  taxable  people  is  not  a  proper  translation  of  capite  censi, 
which  signifies  slave,  or  serf  of  the  body ;  and  that  these  words  of  Guibert,  solitum 
servitutis  debitum,  which  confirms  this  meaning,  are  omitted. 


14  HISTORY    OF    THE 

commune ;  that  is  to  say,  those,  who  were  inscribed  on  the  registers 
of  the  municipality,  and  who  had  sworn  to  observe  its  laws.  The 
dwellers  were  simply  people  from  without,  who  had -their  domicile 
in  the  city  erected  into  a  commune,  without*  participating  in  its 
privileges,  or  even  natives,  whom  low  birth  made  yet  unworthy  of 
the  immunities  of  the  borough. 

This  distinction  between  burghers  and  dwellers  is  remarked  in 
the  communes  of  antiquity,  as  well  as  in  the  communes  of  the  middle 
ages.  A  passage  of  Thucydides  shows  that  the  burghers  of  Athens 
were  called  mo^iVat,  cives,  citizens,  and  the  dwellers  jUftoi'xot,  manentes, 
inhabitants.  The  Roman  laws  also  make  a  great  distinction  be 
tween  the  burghers,  whom  they  called  cives,  and  the  dwellers,  whom 
they  called  incolce.1  Besides,  without  having  the  right  of  burgher- 
ship  by  birth,  it  could  be  acquired,  as  we  have  said,  by  an  inscrip 
tion  on  the  municipal  registers.  Plutarch  relates  an  inscription 
made  at  Rome,  under  the  censorship  of  T.  Quintius  Flaminius, 
in  favor  of  a  great  number  of  individuals  born  of  free  parents.2 
Thucydides  also  speaks,  in  the  history  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  of 
many  foreigners,  whom  the  Leontines  inscribed  on  their  registers 
as  burghers.3  An  ordinance  of  Philip  IV.,  of  the  year  1302,  like 
wise  mentions  burghers,  whom  it  calls  recepti  et  annotati,  received 
and  inscribed;*'  and  we  read  in  a  very  remarkable  dissertation,  in 
troductory  to  the  History  of  Paris  by  Felibien,  that  foreigners,  who 
wished  to  become  burghers  of  Paris,  caused  themselves  to  be  regis 
tered  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.5 

The  inhabitants  of  a  city,  who  obtained  or  purchased  their  lib 
erty,  the  right  of  commune,  organized  for  themselves  a  government 
at  their  pleasure.  In  general  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  the  cities, 
which  obtained  the  right  of  commune,  copied  voluntarily  one  from 
another.  The  charter  of  Laon,  for  example,  had  as  many  imitators 

1  Gives  quidem  origo  .  .  .  incolas  vero  .  .  .  domicilium  facit.  (Code  of  Justi 
nian,  lib.  x.,  tit.  xxxix.,  law  vii.) 

2  Upoffeit^avTO  <!e  n-oXiraj  diroypa<pe.i>ovs  iravrag  oaoi  yoviuv  tXevdepwv  f\aav.   (Plutarch,  Fla- 
minius,  chap,  xviii.) 

3  btovrivoi  yap,  dirt\6ovr<i>v  AQqvaioiv  CK  S(«Ataj  .  .  .  TroXi'raj  iirtypatyavro  TroXXouj. 

(Thucyd.,  lib.  v.,  cap.  iv.) 

4  Est  enim  ordonnatum  quod  nullus  vel  nulla  Burgensis  recipiatur  aut  defend- 
atur  in  aliqua  Burgensi,  quamdiu  tenebit  primam  in  qua  receptus  fuit  et  advocatus, 
seu  annotatus.   (Ord.  of  Philip  IV.,  of  the  year  1302,  in  the  collection  of  ordi 
nances  of  the  kings  of  France.      La  Thomassiere,  Local  Customs,  chap,  xix.) 

5  Dissertation  of  M.  le  Roi,  on  the  origin  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  \  9. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  I.|/ 

in  the  twelfth  century  as  the  English  institutions  in  the  nineteenth. 
This  government  of  the  communes  consisted  of  a  municipal  council, 
in  imitation  of  the  ancient  senates  and  areopagi.  The  number  and 
names  of  the  members  of  this  council  were  very  various.  Peronne 
had  twenty-two  cossors.  Tournay  had  thirty  jurats.  Chateauneuf, 
in  Touraine,  had  ten  burghers.  The  officers  of  the  commune  of 
Verdun  were  called  li  communs  de  la  ville ;  those  of  Boussac  consuls ; 
those  of  the  city  of  Aix  selectmen,  elects  ;  those  of  Issoudun  gover 
nors  ;  those  of  Nancy  free  burghers. 

At  the  head  of  this  council  was  a  magistrate  differently  called  in 
different  cities.  Sometimes  he  was  called  the  maire,  sometimes  the 
ma'ieur,  sometimes  the  prevot.  Ordinarily  there  was  at  the  head 
of  these  councils  only  one  magistrate ;  sometimes,  however,  there 
were  two  —  for  example,  at  Tournay.  The  functions,  as  well  of 
the  councilmen  as  of  the  mayor,  were  generally  annual  and  always 
elective.  The  election  generally  took  place  on  the  Monday  after 
Easter,  or  on  the  feast  of  St.  John  the  Baptist.  Bapaume  re-elected 
its  officers  every  fourteen  months. 

The  municipal  magistrates  took  cognizance  of  all  the  affairs  of 
the  commune,  administrative,  civil,  criminal,  commercial,  and  po 
lice.  A  commune  was,  as  we  see,  a  complete  state.  It  was  what 
the  small  republics  of  antiquity  were,  and  what  the  free  cities  of 
Germany  are  at  this  day.  We  have  already  said  how  the  Edict  of 
Moulins  began  the  demolition  of  the  communes  by  despoiling  them 
of  jurisdiction  in  civil  matters.  Half  a  century  ago  the  communes 
perished  altogether  in  the  general  shipwreck  of  the  institutions  of 
old  France.  There  only  remain  three  stones  of  this  great  edifice 
erected  by  the  hands  of  the  freed  races.  These  are  the  tribunals  of 
municipal  police,  the  obscure  jurisdiction  of  the  prudhommes,  (a) 
and  the  tribunals  of  commerce. 

We  conclude  by  calling  attention  to  the  singular  blunder  com 
mitted  by  the  legislators  of  the  Revolution,  when  they  abolished  the 
ancient  division  of  France  into  parishes,  to  establish  the  division  by 
communes.  These  brave  men,  whose  great  patriotism  must  excuse 
their  little  learning,  did  not  remark  that  the  commune  was  not  an 
extent  of  territory,  but  a  right  of  self-government,  which  certain 

(a)  These  were  men  chosen  by  the  fishermen  of  the  French  seaports,  to  have 
authority  over  the  rest  and  keep  good  order  among  them. 


148  HISTORY    OF    THE 

cities  enjoyed,  and  that  a  commune  being  thus  a  moral  thing,  in 
scribed  in  a  charter,  might  very  well  serve  as  a  bond  of  union  for 
men,  but  not  as  the  type  of  a  geographical  limit.  The  commune 
of  a  city  was  contained  in  a  record,  and  not  in  its  walls,  and  the 
grandeur  of  this  commune  depended,  not  on  the  size  of  the  city, 
but  upon  the  extent  of  the  privileges  which  it  enjoyed. 

The  legislators  of  the  Revolution,  therefore,  showed  themselves, 
perhaps,  to  be  very  good  statesmen,  but  assuredly  very  poor  histo 
rians,  when  they  made  of  the  commune,  which  is  an  idea,  a  territo 
rial  limit,  (a) 

(a)  Our  author's  very  clear  and  precise  explanation  of  the  French  commune 
throws  a  flood  of  light  on  the  present  condition  of  France.  The  general,  al 
most  universal,  idea  in  this  country,  which  has  confounded  the  French  com 
mune  with  what  is  understood  by  the  English  word,  communism  or  socialism,  is 
a  great  error.  It  is  a  great  mistake  also  to  confound  it  with  agrarianism.  It  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  right  of  local  self-government;  the  right  of  the 
inhabitants  of  a  city  to  raise  and  expend  their  own  local  revenues,  and  to  regulate 
their  own  local  matters,  by  officers  chosen  by  themselves  from  among  themselves, 
instead  of  being  governed  by  some  "carpet-bagger"  or  "scalawag,"  appointed 
over  them  by  some  lay  or  ecclesiastical  lord,  or  by  some  centralized  despotism, 
called  king,  or  emperor,  or  president. 

M.  Guizot,  in  his  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Civilization,  draws  a  glowing  pic 
ture  of  the  advantages  of  centralization  and  monarchy  over  republicanism,  and 
explains  how,  by  a  "  silent  and  hidden  process,"  the  right  of  local  self-govern 
ment  was  taken  from  the  cities  and  centred  in  the  crown.  Our  author  explains, 
in  a  note,  that  the  object  of  the  Edict  of  Moulins  was  to  restrict  the  rights  of  the 
municipal  judges,  for  the  profit  of  the  appointees  of  the  king.  The  Bonapartists 
and  the  Legitimists,  or  advocates  of  the  old  Bourbon  dynasty,  agree  with  M. 
Guizot  (who  wrote  in  the  interests  of  the  Orleans  dynasty)  in  his  admiration  for 
a  centralized  despotism.  The  only  difference  between  them  is,  as  to  who  shall 
exercise  that  power  "for  the  profit"  of  his  favorites  —  a  Bonaparte,  a  Bourbon, 
or  one  of  the  house  of  Orleans  ? 

The  communists,  on  the  other  hand,  seek  to  take  advantage  of  the  fall  of 
Louis  Napoleon,  to  decentralize  the  government  into  a  republic,  and  to  recover 
the  right  of  local  self-government,  of  which  the  "silent  and  hidden  "  process  of 
centralization  had  robbed  them.  They  are  tired  of  "  carpet-bag  "  and  "  scalawag  " 
rule,  and  wish  to  get  rid  of  it.  We  know  in  the  South  what  that  is.  To  those, 
who  suffer  under  and  are  impoverished  by  it,  it  is  equally  grievous,  whether 
inflicted  by  an  emperor  or  king,  through  the  instrumentality  of  a  standing  army, 
or  by  a  radical  Congress  and  a  President,  who  wants  to  be  an  emperor,  through 
the  instrumentality  of  a  Freedmen's  Bureau  or  a  Ku-Klux  Bill. 

The  recent  act  of  Congress,  taking  away  the  commune  of  the  cities  of  Wash- 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  149 

ington  and  Georgetown,/^  the  profit  of  the  appointees  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  is  another  "Edict of  Moulins"  for  those  cities.  The  Ku-Klux  law, 
which  has  just  passed  Congress,  taking  away  the  commune  from  the  States,  for 
the  profit  of  the  "carpet-baggers"  and  "scalawags,"  is  another  "  Edict  of  Mou- 
lins"  for  the  States. 

This  process  of  centralization  would  seem  to  be  what  our  author  would  call  a 
human,  because  universal,  fact;  confined  to  no  time  or  country.  We  are  begin 
ning  what  republican  France  is  seeking  to  put  an  end  to.  There  the  effort  is  to 
recover  the  right  of  local  self-government ;  here  the  effort  is  to  suppress  it.  Here 
the  process  is  open  as  day,  and  is  made  noisy  with  the  cry  of  Ku-Klux  !  There, 
though  M.  Guizot  says  it  "was  silent  and  hidden,"  the  cities  of  Toulouse,  Rheims, 
Boulogne,  and  AngoulSme  made  such  a  noise,  in  defence  of  their  rights  of  com- 
mune,  that  Charles  IX.  did  not  dare  to  do  to  those  cities  what  a  Radical  Con 
gress  has  done  to  what  were  sovereign  States  before  there  was  any  Congress. 
The  difference  is  that  here  the  noise  is  made  by  those,  who  are  seeking  to  sup 
press  the  right  of  local  self-government;  there  it  was  made  by  those,  who  were 
defending  that  right.  In  the  sixteenth  century  that  right  prevailed  in  France ; 
in  the  nineteenth,  it  was  trodden  under  the  foot  of  centralism  in  the  United 
States. 

Yet,  after  all,  there  must  be  something  silent  and  hidden  in  the  process ;  or 
surely  the  people  of  the  North  would  not  be  so  deaf  as  not  to  hear,  nor  so  blind 
as  not  to  see  that,  as  the  South  is  impoverished,  they  will  lose  prof, table  customers, 
and  when  the  South  is  stripped  of  all  rights  of  local  self-government,  their  turn 
will  come  next. 

If  the  right  of  local  self-government  enjoyed  by  a  city  or  State,  makes  their 
inhabitants  free,  e  converse,  the  negation  of  that  right  makes  them  slaves. 

The  enslavement  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  cities  of  Washington  and  George 
town,  in  the  now  Territory  of  Columbia,  "for  the  profit"  of  the  appointees  of 
the  President,  furnishes  a  remarkable  illustration  of  the  truth  enunciated  by  M. 
Guizot,  in  the  passages  which  we  have  quoted  in  our  preface.  Men  may  become 
"the  free  and  intelligent  artificers  of  a  work,  the  plan  of  which  they  do  not  per 
ceive  or  comprehend."  The  Democrats  in  Congress,  who  voted  for  that  law,  did 
not  see  that  they  were  taking  a  long,  long  step  in  the  process  of  centralization. 
The  citizens  of  Washington  and  Georgetown,  who  urged  it  upon  Congress,  did 
not  see  that,  in  seeking  to  get  rid  of  one  swarm  of  half-gorged  flies,  they  were 
exposing  themselves  to  another  more  thirsty  and  of  greater  suctorial  powers. 
Their  purpose  was  to  get  relief  from  the  burdens  imposed  by  the  corrupt  officials 
foisted  upon  them  by  negroes,  imported  periodically,  for  the  occasion,  from  the 
adjoining  States  of  Maryland  and  Virginia  and  the  fish-landings  of  the  Potomac. 
But  have  they  not  mistaken  the  remedy  ?  Have  they  not  made  too  much  haste 
to  get  well  ?  It  is  sometimes  better  to  bear  the  ills  we  have,  than  fly  to  others 
that  we  know  not  of.  It  is  an  old,  old  adage  that  "  power  is  always  stealing 
from  the  many  to  the  few."  And  it  is  no  less  true,  that  as  the  power  of  the  few 


I5O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

increases,  their  capacity  of  absorption  from  the  public  treasury  is  magnified  a 
thousand-fold. 

This  enslavement  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  cities  of  Washington  and  George 
town  is  also  an  exemplification  of  the  idea,  (attributed  by  the  old  Federalists 
(monarchists)  to  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,)  that  the  only  way  to  disgust  the  peo 
ple  of  the  United  States  with  republican  government,  and  prepare  them  for  a 
transition  to  a  monarchy,  or  a  despotism,  was  to  join  in  with  the  ideas  of  demo 
cracy,  and  run  them  to  extremes.  On  this  principle  the  imperialists,  commonly 
called  Radicals  —  those  who,  like  Governor  Holden  of  North  Carolina,  "  want  to 
see  General  Grant  an  emperor,  and  his  son  succeed  him  as  emperor  "*  —  have 
acted ;  and  already  we  see  the  cities  of  the  District  of  Columbia  asking  to  be 
disenfranchised,  and  voluntarily  surrendering  that  right  of  local  self-government, 
which  the  cities  of  Toulouse,  Rheims,  Boulogne,  and  Angouleme  successfully 
asserted  against  Charles  IX.  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

The  people  of  the  District  have  mistaken  their  remedy,  and  have  swallowed 
an  tverdose  of  mercury,  the  tendency  of  which  is  to  corrupt  and  undermine  the 
whole  constitution  of  republican  government.  They  should  have  waited,  bear 
ing  with  silent  and  dignified  endurance — as  the  South  have  borne  the  corrupt 
and  infamous  rulers  forced  upon  them,  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  Freed- 
men's  Bureau  and  martial  law  —  until  reason  can  regain  its  throne  at  the  North, 
and  hurl  the  authors  of  their  troubles  from  power. 

Then  the  freedmen  will  settle  down  to  some  regular  labor ;  and  range  them 
selves  in  one  or  the  other  of  De  Cassagnac's  four  classes  of  the  proletariat. 
They  will  become  hirelings,  beggars,  prostitutes,  or  thieves,  and  will  cease  to  be 
six-barrelled  voting-machines,  by  which  bad  and  corrupt  men  can  climb  into 
office,  and  by  office  put  money  in  their  purses.  Then,  without  in  any  way  in 
fringing  on  any  of  the  rights  secured  to  them  by  the  constitutional  amendments, 
they  can  easily  be  brought  to  abandon  the  idea  that  less  than  4,000,000  of  negroes, 
lately  slaves,  can  govern  more  than  30,000,000  of  free-born  whites.  Then  the 
necessity  for  employment  or  protection  on  the  one  hand,  and  for  labor  on  the 
other,  will  again  bring  the  freedmen  and  their  late  masters  into  kindly  relations. 
Then  the  freedmen  will  cease  to  be  the  means  of  creating  a  disgust  for  demo 
cratic  principles,  and  by  fair  and  just  treatment  may  in  time  be  educated  to  exer 
cise  honestly  and  intelligently  their  right  of  suffrage. 

*  See  testimony  of  Rev.  J.  B.  Smith,  principal  of  the  normal  school  for  the  education  of  colored 
teachers,  at  Raleigh,  N.  Carolina.  Sen.  Doc.,  42d  Cong.,  ist  Sess.,  Report  No.  i,  page  221. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

SYMPTOMS     OF     THE     ANCIENT     COMMUNE HIRELINGS   AND 

BEGGARS. 

TO  repeat  one  of  the  principal  ideas,  on  which  the  economy  of 
this  book  rests,  the  commune  is  not,  as  now  and  in  the  present 
state  of  historic  study  is  generally  believed,  a  fact  of  modern  times 
and  Western  kingdoms.  It  is  also  an  error  to  believe  that  the  first 
formation  of  communes  dates  only  from  the  twelfth  century.  As 
we  think,  the  commune  is  a  general  fact,  universal,  human,  be 
longing  to  all  countries  and  to  all  times ;  a  fact,  developed  under 
the  certain  circumstances,  which  we  have  shown,  among  the  He 
brews,  Greeks,  and  Romans,  as  well  as  among  us,  absolutely  by  the 
same  causes,  and  almost  in  the  same  form.  There  is  among  all 
peoples  an  element  —  we  have  said  what  it  is  —  which  undergoes  a 
certain  fermentation,  a  certain  secular  preparation,  and  when  the 
moment  arrives,  is  regularly,  infallibly  metamorphosed,  and  be 
comes  the  commune.  This  metamorphosis,  we  say,  takes  place  in 
every  country,  because  it  operates  on  a  human  element ;  but  it  is 
not  always  taking  place,  because  it  is  the  supreme  effect  of  many 
successive  causes,  which  must  have  the  natural  delay  of  their  gesta 
tion.  Admitting  this,  it  follows  then  that  at  a  given  time  every 
people  have  their  communes. 

Our  intention,  in  a  matter  so  grave,  is  not  only  to  make  an 
assertion,  but  to  prove  it.  We  do  not  shrink  from  the  necessity 
of  establishing  the  existence  of  communes  among  the  ancients. 
Nevertheless  the  reader  must  find  it  very  natural  that  we  should 
make  the  conditions  of  our  labor  as  little  arduous  as  possible,  leav 
ing  to  him  the  sincerity  and  strictness  which  it  is  our  desire  to  give 
him.  Thus  we  have  commenced  by  re-establishing,  as  exactly  as 
we  knew  how,  the  French  commune  in  all  the  truth  of  its  principles 
and  in  all  the  fidelity  of  its  form.  We  have  given  the  first  place  to 
modern,  before  ancient,  times,  because  the  latter  are  less  under  our 
hands,  and  are  more  concealed  from  our  knowledge.  In  this  we 
have  had  no  other  object  than  to  proceed  from  the  more  known  to 


152  HISTORY    OF    THE 

the  less  known ;  to  spare  the  reader  the  prolonged  and  fatiguing 
effort  of  the  analysis,  which  we  must  make,  to  rebuild  the  ancient 
commune  directly,  without  any  point  of  comparison,  without  look 
ing  elsewhere,  and  collecting  one  by  one  the«debris,  which  it  has 
left  in  history  j  and,  on  the  contrary,  to  give  him  the  easy  and 
complete  view  of  the  commune  at  an  epoch  near  to  us,  in  which  it 
appears  well  determined  and  plain,  to  aid  us  afterward  to  recog 
nize  its  principle  and  form  at  an  epoch  remote  from  us,  in  which 
it  only  appears,  especially  at  the  first  glance,  uncertain,  undeter 
mined,  and  doubtful. 

But  we  must  premise  that  we  shall  not  be  so  categorical  in  regard 
to  the  ancient  communes  as  we  have  been  in  reference  to  the  French 
commune,  or,  better  said,  we  will  not  be  so  systematic  and  complete. 
First,  the  important  thing  for  us  in  this  book  is  less  to  fix  the  form 
and  mechanism  of  the  commune  among  the  ancients,  than  to  re 
move  all  doubt  of  its  existence.  It  is  especially  to  this  last  point 
that  we  direct  our  efforts.  Besides,  we  havebe^n  so  explicit  in  every 
thing  relating  to  the  French  commune,  only  that  we  might  not  have 
to  be  so  again  in  what  relates  to  the  ancient  commune,  which  is  in 
our  opinion  an  historic  fact  exactly  similar.  We  will,  therefore, 
confine  ourselves  to  presenting  the  different  order  of  symptoms, 
which  attest  in  the  most  formal  manner  the  existence  of  the  ancient 
commune,  leaving  the  reader  free  to  fix  more  or  less  its  form,  after 
the  complete  type,  which  we  have  placed  before  his  eyes. 

When  we  speak  of  the  antique  commune,  we  wish  to  designate 
the  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Roman. 

We  have  not  yet  found  a  natural  occasion  for  saying  why  we 
have  introduced  the  Jewish  municipality.  It  is  nevertheless  an  ex 
planation  necessary  for  us,  and  which  we  are  going  to  venture  here, 
in  the  form  of  parenthesis,  without  knowing  precisely  whether  we 
have  selected  the  best  or  the  worst  moment  for  it.  We  have  placed, 
or  rather  we  wish  to  place,  the  Jewish  commune  alongside  of  the 
Greek,  Roman,  and  French ;  because  the  Jews,  who  are  the  trunk 
and  centre  of  all  Semitic  people,  may  be  considered  as  represent 
ing  the  East;  and  we  desire,  in  the  universal,  human,  and  absolute 
explanation,  which  we  wish  to  give  of  the  commune,  to  show  it 
always  identical  in  the  most  opposite  circumstances ;  for  example, 
among  the  peoples  of  the  East  and  among  the  peoples  of  the  West. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  153 

The  testimony  which  we  have  sought,  and  are  going  still  to  seek, 
in  the  Bible,  is  not  then  an  effect  of  the  desire  to  display  our 
erudition,  but  makes  an  integral  part  of  our  thoughts,  and  is  the 
natural  stay  of  our  subject.  We  resume. 

We  said  that  there  are  symptoms,  the  presence  of  which,  suffi 
ciently  established,  always  infallibly  certify  the  formation  of  com 
munes.  It  is  by  the  aid  of  these  symptoms  that  we  proceed  to 
re-establish  the  ancient  commune. 

The  first  of  these  signs  is  the  existence  of  hirelings  and  beggars. 
Without  wishing  to  repeat  on  this  subject  what  we  have  already  said 
at  the  commencement  of  this  book,  it  is  evident,  that  in  the  primi 
tive  periods,  that  is  to  say,  during  the  periods  of  pure  slavery,  there >^- 
were  no  beggars,  because  each  master  supported  his  slaves.  Even 
now,  notwithstanding  the  very  considerable  decline  of  their  primi 
tive  institutions,  the  European  colonies  of  the  Antilles  (a)  and  of 
the  Indian  Sea  have  not  one  single  beggar ;  and  for  some  years,  we 
have  a  sort  of  likeness,  sufficiently  faithful,  of  people -under  their 
primitive  constitution,  in  the  Arabs  of  Atlas  and  the  Desert,  where 
mendicity  is  a  thing  perfectly  unknown,  and  unheard  of;  for  this 
reason,  that  there  the  masters  are  above  want,  because  they  are  mas 
ters,  and  the  slaves  also,  because  they  are  slaves ;  the  former  having 
all  they  want,  since  they  are  able  to  give,  and  the  latter  also,  as 
they  receive  what  they  need  from  their  masters.  The  first  paupersT 
seen  since  the  formation  of  great  peoples,  thus  come  from  the  hire 
ling  freedmen,  who,  having  been  turned  over  to  themselves,  with 
little  property  or  industry,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  language  of  the 
economists,  with  a  capital  and  a  credit  naturally  very  inconsider 
able,  run  the  risk  of  spending  the  one,  and  losing  the  other,  and 
of  being  reduced  to  beggary  for  their  support.  Now,  as  the  fewer 
hireling  laborers  there  are  in  a  country,  the  greater  the  chances  of 
making  a  living,  to  find  beggars  among  a  people  is  a  sign  that  the 
hirelings,  that  is  to  say,  the  freedmen,  are  already  there  in  great 
number  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  as  the  freedmen  have  always  and 
everywhere  been  repelled  with  disdain  from  the  government,  (£)  and 

(a)  How  different  the  condition  of  the  West  Indies,  now  that  pauperism  and 
beggary  have  become,  by  emancipation,  the  normal  condition  of  three-fourths  of 
the  freedmen ! 

(6)  The  only  exception,  and  a  very  notable  one  it  is,  to  the  general  rule  here  laid 


154  HISTORY    OF    THE 

from  the  alliances  of  noble  families,  to  find  the  freedmen  numerous 
among  any  people,  furnishes  a  strong  presumption,  is  almost  a  posi 
tive  indication  that  they  form  a  separate  association,  fraternity,  cor 
poration,  or  commune,  which  are  all  more  or  less  the  same  thing. 

Here  we  have  a  sign,  on  the  faith  of  which  we  are  disposed  to 
believe,  in  presence  of  texts  from  the  Odyssey,  from  Leviticus  and 
Deuteronomy,  that  there  had  been  enfranchisements  of  communes 
among  the  Greeks,  and  among  the  Jews,  at  the  time  of  the  disper 
sion  of  the  chiefs,  and  at  the  epoch  of  the  sojourn  in  the  desert. 
We  have  above  indicated  our  proofs,  which  are  the  existence  of 
hirelings  and  beggars.  Beggars  are  mentioned  in  the  Odyssey,  in 
Hesiod,  and  in  Leviticus.  We  have  already  said  that  they  are  not 
to  be  found  in  the  Iliad  ;  and  in  the  primitive  poets,  above  all  in 
Homer,  silence  as  to  a  great  fact  is  almost  equivalent  to  an  affirma 
tion,  because  of  the  scrupulous  exactness  with  which  all  realities, 
historic,  political,  and  even  scientific,  moral,  and  religious,  are  there 
always  set  forth.  We  say  that  there  is  no  mention  of  paupers  in 

down  by  our  author,  is  to  be  found  in  the  condition  of  the  Southern  States,  since 
the  late  war.  There  the  freedmen  now  fill  the  legislative  halls,  and  control  the 
government,  while  their  former  masters,  the  once  free  citizens  of  a  State,  have  been 
v  deprived  of  their  commune,  or  right  of  self-government.  This  remarkable  phe 
nomenon  is  not  without  a  cause,  which  is  this  :  all  other  emancipations,  of  which 
we  read  in  history,  were  made  by  the  masters  themselves,  either  from  good-will 
to  their  slaves,  or  to  rid  themselves  of  the  burden  of  their  support.  But  in  this 
instance,  emancipation  was  forced  upon  the  masters  by  their  conquerors  ;  and, 
as  the  avowed  object  of  those  conquerors  was  to  make  free  labor  cheaper  than 
slave  labor,  that  is  to  say,  "  to  reduce  the  wages  of  labor  below  the  cost  of  feeding 
and  clothing  a  slave  and  taking  care  of  him  in  infancy,  sickness  and  old  age"  the 
war  was  not  made  upon  the  slaveholders  because  they  held  slaves,  so  much  as 
because  they  voted,  with  the  working  classes  of  the  North,  to  shape  the  legisla 
tion  of  the  country  so  as  to  keep  up  the  wages  of  labor,  and  keep  down  the  cost 
of  living.  Therefore,  the  late  masters  have,  since  the  war,  been  as  much  as  pos 
sible  excluded  from  all  participation  in  the  government  ;  while  the  late  slaves. 
have  been  placed  in  power  by  the  bayonets  of  the  conquerors,  for  an  additional 
reason,  namely,  because  the  natural  tendency  of  the  European  immigrants,  Ger 
mans  and  Irish  especially,  is  toward  the  Democratic  party,  because  of  its  pro 
clivities  for  high  wages  and  cheap  living.  Therefore,  the  monarchists,  who  de 
spise  democracy,  and  the  capitalists,  who  seek  to  reduce  wages,  have  sought  to 
use  the  freed  negro  in  the  Southern  States  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  Irish  and  Ger 
mans  in  the  North  and  West. 


S>  ^--M^t'Cs    W,  OvtXV 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  155 

the  Iliad  ;  but  we  must  add,  that  there  is  in  the  Odyssey,  a  poem 
which  we  consider  as  a  little  posterior  ;  for  there  is  a  passage  in  the 
fourth  book,  which  says  that  there  were  no  paupers  in  the  Greek 
camp.1 

Moreover,  other  reasons,  for  we  give  them  all,  those  that  are 
against  us,  as  sincerely  as  those  for  us  —  other  reasons  cause  us  to 
affirm  that,  although  there  is  no  mention  of  paupers  in  the  Iliad, 
the  Trojan  population  must  have  been  organized  as  a  commune. 
First,  mention  is  made  of  hirelings  in  the  twenty-first  book  ;  2  and 
as  to  the  establishment  of  municipalities,  the  existence  of  hirelings 
is  a  sign  almost  as  certain  as  the  existence  of  paupers,  as  it  presup 
poses,  though  in  a  less  degree,  the  operation  of  manumissions.  In 
the  second  place,  in  a  passage  of  the  ninth  book,  mention  is  plainly 
made  of  an  association,  which  could  be  no  other  than  a  communal 
association,  or  an  industrial  corporation.  Achilles  says  to  Ajax, 
that  he  had  been  treated  by  Agamemnon  like  a  wretch  driven  from 
y  his  fraternity.3  This  passage  is  literally  repeated  in  the  sixteenth 
book,  verse  59.  The  word  fjutavaaiys  by  itself  only  signifies  one 
banished  from  an  association,  a  body,  a  city  ;  but  the  word  of  con 
tempt,  fatfujtos,  evidently  indicates  that  the  question  was  of  an  asso 
ciation  much  below  Achilles,  who  was  a  gentleman,  and  often 
boasted  of  it.  Finally,  and  we  only  come  to  proof  by  words,  after 
having  given  the  proof  by  facts,  the  expression,  burgher  or  citizen, 
formally  appears  in  the  Iliad,  book  twenty-second.*  We  have  seen, 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  that  the  word  rto>.<,V>7$  expressly  signifies 
burgher,  in  Thucydides.  Besides,  we  must  not  forget  how  precise, 
particular,  and  of  exact  meaning  the  primitive  writings  are.  More 
over,  there  are  so  many  passages  in  Homer  that  establish  the  ele 
vated  position  of  the  Trojan  nobility,  that  it  is  not  possible  to  ap- 


1  A.VTOV  #om 
At/CTj;,  &s  ovtiev  rolof  lr\v  iiri  vijvolv  ' 

(Homer.  Odyssey,  lib.  iv.,  v.  247,  248.) 
^TiJre  rwt  Qirjoara  m<r8ov  aitavra. 
AKO^i6(t)v  IWAayoj  affftX^aaj  6  '  ansnt^irsv^ 

(Iliad,  lib.  xxi.,  v.  451,  452.) 
3  Mvwro/icii  ,  wj  fttgnxfa\N>  ev  Apyttotaiv  cpcfcc 


(Iliad,  lib.  ix.,  v.  647,  648.) 

hit  ie  artvaxovro  vo\iTai. 

(Iliad,  lib.  xxii.,  v.  429.) 


156  HISTORY    OF    THE 

ply  the  word  TtoXtVot  to  others  than  the  burghers.  Finally,  there  are 
many  other  reasons,  which  we  will  present  hereafter,  why  we  do  not 
hesitate  to  affirm  that  Troy  had  a  commune. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

SYMPTOMS   OF   THE   ANCIENT   COMMUNE  —  ARCHITECTURE. 


second  sign  by  which,  among  ancient  peoples,  the  forma- 
A  tion  of  communes  is  infallibly  recognized,  is  the  existence  of 
walled  cities. 

We  hasten  to  resume,  and  make  this  observation  :  it  is  a  great 
error  to  imagine,  without  having  closely  examined,  that  the  con 
struction  of  houses  or  of  cities  has  always  been  a  matter  of  indiffer 
ence,  caprice,  or  whim,  and  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  draw 
from  it  any  instruction.  It  is  true  that  at  present  the  history  of 
architecture  proves  nothing,  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  is  no 
history  of  architecture.  But  if  that  history  were  written,  we  would 
very  soon  realize  that  architecture  has  its  laws  like  every  other 
order  of  facts  ;  that  intimately  connected  with  the  nature  of  families 
and  their  developments,  it  always  receives  a  counterblow  from 
social  revolutions,  and  that  such  and  such  form  of  habitations  in  a 
country  may,  after  thousands  of  years,  aid  the  historian  to  recognize 
such  or  such  species  of  inhabitants,  as  the  shells  that  the  laborer's 
plough  raises  to  the  surface  cause  us  to  say,  with  certainty,  The  sea 
has  been  here. 

On  our  own  account,  and  only  as  far  as  the  exposition  of  our  ideas 
about  the  ancient  commune  requires,  we  will  essay  to  write  a  chapter 
of  the  history  of  architecture.  We  must  be  permitted  meanwhile 
to  point  out  the  singular  position  of  every  historian  of  the  present 
day,  on  account  of  the  disorder,  incoherence,  and,  above  all,  the 
insufficiency  of  their  studies.  Having  ventured  to  describe  the 
communal  and  burgher  life  of  antiquity,  it  happens  that  we  have 
occasion  to  consult  on  one  point  the  history  of  architecture  ;  but 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  157 

this  history  has  not  been  written.  We  will  have  need  to  consult 
in  the  next  chapter  the  history  of  ancient  law ;  but  that  too  has 
not  been  written.  Whenever,  then,  we  wish  to  penetrate  into  the 
critical  history  of  an  order  of  facts  other  than  the  list  of  kings, 
cities,  and  battles,  we  are  arrested  constantly  by  the  want  of  certain 
preparatory  and  necessary  works.  Thus,  having  now  undertaken  to 
write  the  history  of  the  ancient  communes,  we  are  forced  to  leave 
that  subject,  and  first,  for  our  own  special  use,  write  a  small  chapter 
of  the  history  of  architecture ;  like  a  woodman,  who  had  started  to 
cut  down  a  forest,  and  finds  it  necessary  to  retrace  his  steps  to  forge 
an  axe. 

We  were  just  saying  that  the  existence  of  walled  cities  proves 
among  ancient  peoples  the  existence  of  communes.  We  will,  in 
fact,  show  that  whenever  a  city  was  enclosed  with  a  wall,  it  is  a 
proof  that  its  houses  were  constructed  in  blocks,  en  patts,  as  we 
say  in  our  language,  insulas,  as  would  be  said  in  the  Latin  tongue. 
Now,  on  the  other  hand,  we  will  show  that  in  the  commencement  of 
all  peoples,  the  noble  families  always  inhabited  isolated  houses,  and 
the  burgher  families  houses  built  together  and  associated ;  so  that  a 
castle  invariably  corresponds  to  a  gentleman,  as  a  partition  wall  in 
fallibly  corresponds  to  two  burghers. 

Without  going  farther,  we  can  say  in  two  words,  reserving  all  the 
developments  and  proof,  that  noble  families  must  naturally  have  in 
habited  houses  differently  constructed  from  those  of  the  burgher 
families.  We  have  already  shown  that,  in  the  first  ages  of  every 
people,  every  chief  of  a  family  had  jurisdiction.  Now  in  all  times, 
in  antiquity  as  in  the  middle  ages,  the  centre  of  the  jurisdiction  was 
the  seignorial  tower.  For  example,  all  the  territory  of  the  ancient 
Viscount  of  Paris  was  held  in  fee  from  the  Tower  of  the  Louvre. 
It  must  necessarily  then  have  been  that  the  residence  of  every  noble 
family  stood  alone,  because  every  seigniory  was  indivisible.  In  a 
word,  architecture  always  represents  the  organization  of  society; 
for  the  nobles  it  built  isolated  houses ;  for  the  associated  burghers, 
associated  houses. 

We  regret  to  enter  now,  ever  so  little,  on  the  history  of  the  noble 
races,  which  we  purpose  to  treat  separately ;  but  the  noble  races 
and  the  slave  races  are  two  great  facts  so  intimately  connected  that  in 
a  multitude  of  cases  it  is  impossible  to  speak  of  one  without  touch- 


158  HISTORV    OF    THE 

ing  upon  the  other.  There  are  some  occasions,  when  they  are  so 
evidently  the  counterparts,  the  cause  or  the  effect,  the  limitation 
or  the  generalization  of  each  other,  that  it  becomes  indispensable 
to  study  them  together  to  fully  comprehend  them  separately.  We 
will  therefore  briefly  explain  what  the  isolated  houses  were,  to  explain 
fully  what  the  associated  houses  were. 

Primitively,  that  is  to  say,  before  the  time  of  emancipations  —  for 
it  is  necessary  to  go  back  so  far,  that  the  two  histories,  of  the  noble 
races,  and  of  the  slave  races,  may  be  distinct,  and  not  encroach 
upon  each  other  —  primitively,  an  isolated  house,  a  castle,  always 
belonged  to  a  gentleman,  to  one  of  the  nobles,  to  one  of  the 
fathers,  whom  the  poets  call  divine,  and  to  this  castle  a  tower  was 
essential.  This  is  fundamental  and  universal,  and  nothing  is  more 
historically  correct  than  the  expression  of  Horace  in  the  ode,  where 
he  says  that  "death  strikes  equally  the  huts  of  the  poor  and  the 
towers  of  the  princely  races."  l  Turn's  means  strictly  DONJON  in 
this  passage,  and  we  will  tell  why. 

In  the  first  ode  of  Horace,  in  which  the  poet  dedicates  his  verses 
to  Maecenas,  he  calls  him,  in  his  language,  atavis  edite  regibus? 
issue  of  the  blood  of  kings,  as  the  translators  say ;  which,  in  our 
opinion,  is  a  wrong  construction.  The  difficulty  of  the  passage  is 
in  the  word  regibus,  which  is  erroneously  translated  king,  which  is 
the  modern  meaning,  and  not  the  true  one  in  this  case.  First,  it 
should  be  remarked  that  the  ode  of  Horace  is  dedicatory,  and  con 
sequently  Maecenas  ought  to  be  designated  in  it  by  the  titles  which 
he  bore  officially.  He  is,  in  fact,  designated  in  it  by  the  title  of 
rex,  which  is  in  the  ode  a  word  of  strict  sense,  belonging  to  the 
heraldic  vocabulary  of  the  Roman  nobility,  and  ought  to  be  trans 
lated  in  French  prince,  equally  in  the  strict  sense,  and  signifying 
what  this  word  signifies  in  a  name  like  that  of  M.  le  Prince 
d'Henin,  or  M.  le  Prince  de  la  Tremoille.  Maecenas,  in  fact, 
took  in  the  public  acts  the  title  of  rex,  which  proves  very  clearly 
that  it  does  not  signify  king,  as  the  translators  of  Horace  think. 
Besides,  a  passage  of  Plutarch  is  very  explicit  on  this  point,  for  he 

1  Pallida  mors  oequo  pulsat  pede  pauperum  tabernas 

Regumqueturres.  (Horat.  Carmin.,  lib.  i.,  od.  iv.) 

1  Maecenas,  atavis  edite  regibus.  (Horat.  Carmin.,  lib.  i.,  od.  i.,  v.  I.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  I5Q 

says  that  there  were  at  Rome  four  families,  the  Mamerci,  the  Cal- 
purnii,  the  Pomponii,  and  the  Pinarii,  who  alone  had  the  right  of 
signing  and  taking  the  title  of  reges.  Plutarch  adds  that  these 
four  families  justified  this  title,  in  saying  that  they  were  descended 
from  Numa.1  Now,  Maecenas  was  of  one  of  these  families.  It 
results  from  this  passage  of  Plutarch  that  the  explanation,  true  or 
false,  of  the  origin  of  the  title  of  prince,  given  by  the  four  families 
which  bore  it,  was  invented  too  late.  It  is  thus  that  the  first-born 
of  the  house  of  Rohan  also  justify  their  title  of  prince,  by  saying 
that  they  were  descended  from  the  dukes  of  Brittany,  which  is  only 
half  true  ;  for  they  are  descended  from  them,  but  only  through  the 
females.  All  that  we  have  said  of  the  princely  title  of  Maecenas 
will  be  strengthened  by  the  evidence  in  the  second  volume  of  this 
work,  which  will  treat  of  the  noble  races,  and  in  which  we  will 
essay  to  revive  the  principles  which  regulated  proper  names,  the 
blazon,  the  titling,  in  fine,  all  the  heraldic  ceremonial  of  the  Greek 
and  the  Roman  nobility. 

We  have  then  shown  that  in  the  verse  of  Horace,  of  which  we 
speak,  the  word  rex  signifies  prince.  Now  this  signification,  which 
is  the  true  one,  reacts  upon  that  of  the  word  turns,  in  the  same 
verse,  which  does  not  mean  simply  tower,  but  seignorial  tower, 
donjon.  In  its  character  of  a  seignorial  house,  the  house  of  a  gen 
tleman,  that  of  a  Maecenas,  ought  to  have  had  a  donjon.  It,  in  fact, 
had  one.  Horace  mentions  it  in  an  ode,  in  which  he  writes  to 
Maecenas  that  he  will  be  happy  to  drink  with  him  under  his  roof.2 

I  O<  6z  npof  ravrrj  rcaaapaf  tuouj  avaypaipovoiv  avrov  fNot^afV  Ilo/*?ra)^a,  TIivov,  KaXrroi-, 
^.afiepKOv,  &>f  EKaarov  OIKOV  6ia6o\irtv  *rai  ysvovf  ii/ripou  /caraAtTmv  uvai  yap  and  ^tv  TOV 
rto/ujra^of  rovj  riofiiruviovg,  dno  di  U.IVOM  rouj  Hivapiovf,  and  rJc  KaXn-ou  rouj  KaXrrovpviovf, 
arro  <5c  Ma/*tp<fou  rouj  Ma^cp/a'ovf  015  <5ta  TOVTO  KOI  p»?ya$  yeveaftai  napavvpiov,  6irsp  ian 
/?a<T(Xca{.  (Plutarch,  Numa,  ch.  xxi.) 

The  text  of  this  passage  proves  very  clearly  that  reges,  in  the  present  case,  was 
a  technical  word,  and  did  not  signify  king,  since  Plutarch,  who  could  not  trans 
late  it  strictly  into  Greek,  Grecianizes  it,  and  renders  it  by  /»/ya{,  adding  only  for 
his  Greek  readers  that  this  word  means  to  say,  in  their  language,  0aai\iai ;  but 
that  was  only  the  approximative  and  derivative  sense,  since  the  primitive  and 
proper  sense  had  no  corresponding  word  in  the  Greek  language,  unless  pnyas, 
which  is  a  barbarism. 

a       ,  Quando 

Tecum  sub  alta,  sic  quando  Jovi  gratum  dome, 
Beate  Maecenas,  bibam?  (Horat.  Epod.,  lib.  od.  9.) 


I6O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Besides,  this  tower  is  expressly  named  by  Suetonius,  who  says  that 
Nero  went  up  into  it  to  see  the  burning  of  Rome.1 

The  characteristic  of  all  the  houses  of  the  nobles  was,  as  we  have 
said,  to  have  a  tower,  and  to  be  isolated.  It  is  9.  principle,  which 
has  no  exception  among  any  people  in  the  primitive  times.  Thus, 
in  the  Iliad,  Patroclus  and  Hector  are  mentioned  as  having  a  high 
house,2  and,  in  the  ^Eneid,  Turnus  also  has  one.3 

More  than  that.  We  may  descend  from  the  Homeric  tijnes  to 
those  nearer  the  Christian  era,  without  ceasing  to  find  isolation 
and  the  tower  the  characteristic  signs  of  seignorial  houses.  In  the 
Anabasis,  Xenophon  cites  a  village  without  walls,  and  consequently, 
as  we  will  show,  a  village  of  nobles,  whose  houses  were  surmounted 
by  towers,*  and  a  little  farther  on  he  also  mentions  a  chief  of  a  tribe 
of  Asia  Minor,  who  lived  in  a  tower.5 

The  history  of  the  Jews  is  full  of  analogous  facts.  To  limit  our 
examples,  we  will  cite  Demetrius,  King  of  Syria,  who  inhabited,  at 
some  distance  from  Antioch,  a  castle  with  four  great  towers,6  and 
Herod  the  Great,  who  built,  sixty  stadii  from  Jerusalem,  a  pleasure 
castle,  which  also  had  towers  at  its  extremities.7 

As  to  the  Romans,  Suetonius  relates  that  Augustus,  being  still  an 
infant,  disappeared  one  day  from  the  family  country-seat,  where  he 
was  raised,  and  that  the  women,  after  a  long  search,  found  him  at 
the  top  of  the  tower.8  As  to  the  form  of  these  towers,  it  appears 
that  they  were  round,  and  that  they  were  at  the  angles  of  the  build 
ing.  This,  at  least,  is  what  is  proved  by  a  tower  almost  entire  in  a 
Roman  wall,  which  may  be  seen  in  the  curious  Pelasgian  Museum 

1  Hoc  incendium  e  turri  Mseceatiana  prospectans.    (Sueton.  Tranquil.,  Nero, 
Claudius  Caesar,  cap.  xxxvi.) 

2  'rijjcpt$is  jieya  <5£/ia.  (Horn.  Iliad.,  lib.  xix.,  v.  333.) 
Ad/iot>  i>\^ri\oio.    (Horn.  Iliad.,  lib.  xxii.,  v.  440.) 

Tectis  hie  Turnus  in  altis.  (Virg.  ^Eneid.,  lib.  vii.,  v.  443.) 

E«'j    61    fiv    d<piKOVTO    Kupriv,  jjtyaAi?    rs   fiv,  xai   ~Raai\tiov  rt   il\£   ra>  earpairrj,  «rat  cnl  raif 

TT\S  <rracj  ol/aatj  nSpacij  iirrtaav.   (Xenophon,  Anabasis,  lib.  iv.,  ch.  iv.,  $2.) 

'O  i'  f>v  t»  rvpaci  jiaAa  $uAarr6^£i/oj.  (Xenophon,  Anabasis,  lib.  vii.,  cap.  ii.,  $  21.) 

'  AiroK^tioas  yap  aiirdv   n'{    rcrpairvpytov  ri   BaffiAnov,  6   KartaiccvaoEV  dt>r<5f  owe   aitoXtv   rfjj 

'A  no\tias,  ovtiiva  npoaiero.   (Flavius  Josephus,  Antiq.  Judaeorum,  lib.  xiii.,  cap.  iii.) 

npoaxartaxtvaaaro  Qpovptov  ini  roxov  .  .  .  <pwti  6s  ia\vpdv  .  .  .  6tei\citrai  6i  KVK\WTtpfoi 
rrvpyojf.  (Flav.  Joseph.,  Antiq.  Jud.,  lib.  xv.,  cap.  xii.) 

8  Diu  quaesitus,  tandem  in  altissima  turre  repertus  est.  (Sueton.  Tranquil., 
Oct.  Caesar  Aug.,  c.  114.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  l6l 

of  M.  Petit-Radel.  The  houses  of  the  German  nobles  made  no  ex 
ception  to  this  rule  of  seignorial  houses.  Tacitus  relates  that  the 
Roman  ambassadors  sent  to  Velleda  found  her  in  a  tower,  which 
she  made  her  habitual  residence.1 

Moreover,  it  is  certain  that  the  towers  of  these  castles  were 
intended  for  defence,  for  they  were  fortified  in  the  country,  and 
in  the  cities  they  stood  apart  by  themselves.  In  the  Odyssey,  the 
house  of  Ulysses,  which  likewise  had  its  tower,  on  which  the  eagles 
perched,2  was  girt  by  a  wall,  and  its  entrance  was  closed  by  a  solid 
double  door.8  Within  this  enclosure  were  kept  the  greyhounds  of 
the  chatelain,*  and,  what  will  perhaps  surprise,  the  geese  raised  by 
the  chatelainess.5  This  house,  then,  nearly  resembled  those  castles 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  which  are  still  to  be  seen  in  Bourbonnais 
and  Quercy.  Homer  adds  that  only  the  house  of  Ulysses,  among 
all  those  of  the  neighborhood,  was  thus  constructed. 

In  the  history  of  Greece  and  Asia  Minor  we  frequently  find  these 
fortified  castles,  even  at  epochs  much  later  than  Homeric  times. 
Alcibiades  had  one  in  Chersonesus.6  These  castles  in  the  Greek 
chronicles  bore  the  name  of  tf i%<>$  or  that  of  gaotxetov,  as  one  would 
say  chateau-fort,  or  Palais-Royal ;  but  a  great  number  of  texts  es 
tablish  that,  whatever  their  name,  they  were  always  provided  with 
towers.  In  the  Anabasis,  Xenophon  speaks  of  a  castle  of  King 


1  Legati  ad  ...  Velledam  missi  cum  donis  .  .  .  ipsa  edita  in  turre.  (Tacitus,  lib. 
iv.,  cap.  Ixv.) 

3  .  .  .  *O  not  aierdf  etcrave  xfivas, 

p'  ?£er'  irrl  irpovxovrt  /ieAa0p<u. 

(Odys.,  lib.  xix.,  v.  543,  544.) 


o 


,  Svpat 


(Odys.,  lib.  xvii.,  v.  266-268.) 
*  "A.v  (5a  KVMV  K£(f>a\fii>  rt  KOI  ovara  K£IHSI>OS  ta\ev 
"Apyoj,  'OJwffiJof  Ta\aoi<ppovos,  ov  fid  TTOT'  afcdf 
Gptyc  pev. 

(Odys.,  lib.  xvii.,  v.  291-293.) 
6  .  .  .  X>;ya;  evl  ntydpouri  vorjaa, 
Hvpov  cperrTOpivovs  napd  7rve\ov. 

(Odys.,  lib.  xix.,  v.  552,  553.) 

6  Aa£a)>>  rtifiprj  ^tav,  dntir\tvaev  if  \epfrovrioov,  if  rd  tovrow  reiX'i.  (Xenophon,  Hellenic., 
lib.  i.,  ch.  v.j 


l62  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Asidates,  which  had  a  tower  with  ramparts,1  and  contained  a  strong 
garrison.  A  little  lower  he  adds  that  after  having  undermined  this 
castle,  they  found  the  walls  to  be  eight  bricks  in  thickness.2  In 
the  Cyropedia,  Xenophon  mentions  the  castle  of  a  chief  named 
Gobryas.  He  adds  that  this  castle  was  strong.8  It  results  from 
another  passage  that  the  tower  of  this  castle  must  have  had  a 
platform  with  battlements,  for  it  was  furnished  with  machines  of 
war.4 

In  Virgil  we  find  this  kind  of  fortified  castles  very  positively  men 
tioned  in  two  places,  in  the  ^Eneid  5  and  in  the  Georgics.6  As  to 
seignorial  houses  in  enclosed  cities,  they  stood  apart  and  on  an 
elevation.  Those  of  Priam,  Hector,  and  Paris  were  all  three  sep 
arated,  as  Homer  relates.7  Virgil  says  as  much  of  that  of  Anchises, 
and  of  that  of  King  Latinus.8 

All  the  testimony,  which  we  have  collected,  in  relation  to  the 
houses  of  the  nobles  in  primitive  times,  are  then  unanimous  on  these 
two  points,  that  they  had  a  tower,  and  that  they  were  isolated.  The 
tower  was  a  sign  of  seignorial  jurisdiction,  and  the  isolation  was  a 
consequence  of  the  paternal  jurisdiction.  We  have  already  observed 


i'eircl  ow  ifivvavro  \a6eiv  r^  rvpaiv,  vt//ijX/?  yap  ijv,  *ai  fieyu^rj,  xai 
Xt&vas,  Kai  avipaf  woXXovj,  Kai  ^axi^ovf  exovoa,  iiopVTreiv  tnc.\cipriaav  rov  Trvpyov.    (Xenophon, 
Anab.,  lib.  vii.,  cap.  viii.,  \  13.) 

2  'O  ie  rotxoj  ijv  inl  o«ro>  ir\ivQuv  ynivuv  rd  svpog.    (Xenophon,  Anab.,  lib.  vii.,  cap. 
viii.,  I  14.) 

3  "ExoJ  oe  *ai  Telxfls   iaxvpov,  KOI   \upas  ctrapxu  no\\ns>    (Xenophon,    Cyrop.,   lib.    IV., 

cap.  vi.,  \  2.) 

*  ...  yiyvovrai   vpdf   rw   Ta>6pvov  Xo>f)tw,  «rai   bp&aiv  virepioX.vpdv  rt   TO   epv^a,  <cai   in  rdv 
rii\&v  navra  irapcoKtvaapiva,  uf  a.v  xpanoTa  dn-o/*dwtro.    (Xenophon,  Cyrop.,  lib.  V.,   Cap. 

ii.,  \  2.) 

8  Aut  montana  sedet  circum  castella  sub  artnis. 

(Virgil,  y£neid,  lib.  v.,  v.  440.) 

6  ...  Norica  si  quis 
Castella  in  tumulis. 

(Virgil,  Georg.,  lib.  iii.,  v.  473,  474.)  ' 

'  "Ejrrup  6k  npdf  to/^or'  'AX£|d»/^poto  BeSfiKei 
KaXa,  TO  p  atfrdj  erev^e  ovv  avfipdoiv,  ot  r6r>  apiorot 
Haav  hi  Tpoiy  epi6a>\UKi  rtKroutt  avdpef 
OT  ot  iiroitioav  SdXapioi/  «cai  (5a5/xa,  Kai  avXr>, 
Eyyt50t  rt  Hpiaftoio,  Kai  "Epropoj,  tv  n6\ci  apKt}. 

(Iliad,  lib.  vi.,  313-317.) 

8  Anchisse  domus  arboribus  obtecta  recessit.  (yEneid.,  lib.  ii.,  v.  300.)    Tectum 
augustum,  horrendum  sylvis.  (^neid.,  lib.  vii.,  v.  313-317.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  163 

that  it  is  not  difficult  to  give  the  reasons  for  this  latter  fact.  The 
general  and  primitive  fact,  on  which  the  historic  value  of  families 
rests,  is  the  paternal  power,  and  the  paternal  power  itself  rests  on 
an  uninterrupted  succession  of  noble  ancestors.  Now,  this  paternal 
power,  exercised  in  the  name  of  ancestors,  had  its  seat  by  the  hearth, 
which  was,  in  some  sort,  the  sanctuary  of  domestic  justice.  Corio- 
lanus,  banished  from  Rome,  went  to  seat  himself  by  the  hearth  of 
Tullus,  King  of  the  Volscians.  It  was  precisely  there,  that  the 
fathers  of  families  offered  sacrifices  to  the  gods  of  their  houses,  who 
were  called  the  gods  of  parents,  divi  parentum,1  in  the  same  man 
ner  as  the  Bible  says:  the  God  of  our  fathers  ,  the  God  of  Abraham, 
of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob.  Now,  as  in  a  whole  noble  family  there  was 
but  one  father,  in  a  noble  house  there  could  be  but  one  hearth,  but 
one  sanctuary,  but  one  tribunal  ;  and,  as  a  stranger  could  not  par 
ticipate  in  the  paternal  power  of  a  noble,  so  a  house  near  to  the 
house  of  a  noble  did  not  participate  in  the  sanctity  of  its  hearth. 
The  paternal  authority  of  a  noble  was  a  perfect  whole  ;  the  house 
of  a  noble  was  another. 

The  association  of  houses,  that  is  to  say,  the  creation  of  the  party 
wall,  is  contemporaneous  with  the  association  of  the  freedmen,  and 
the  creation  of  burghers.  It  is  a  very  difficult  history,  but  one  very 
important,  and  which  we  can  only  sketch. 

And,  first,  it  is  a  general  fact  for  all  the  primitive  cities,  that 
they  were  formed  by  the  accumulation  of  houses  built  around  a 
castle. 

The  birth  of  cities,  and  the  epoch  of  their  infancy,  when  they  were 
still  in  the  condition  of  feudal  villages,  is  one  of  the  most  curious 
spectacles  in  history.  The  Greek  chronicles  furnish  abundant  ex 
amples  of  these  primitive  boroughs,  the  houses  of  which  were  grouped 
around  a  seignorial  castle.  Xenophon  mentions  the  castle  of  the 
satrap  Pharnabases,  around  which  villages  were  built.2  Elsewhere, 
he  also  mentions  the  castle  of  the  King  of  the  Mossynsecians,  situ 
ated  also  in  the  centre  of  a  village  ;  and  what  he  says  of  it  is  very  con 
clusive  of  the  general  principle,  which  we  have  laid  down  ;  for  he 

1  Sei.  Parentum.  puer.  verberit.  Ast.  oloe.  plora.  Sit.  diveis  parentum.  Sacer. 
Estod.  (Codex  Papyrian.,  leg.  30.     Terrass.,  History  of  Roman  Jurisprudence.) 
2Xenophon,  Hellenic.,  lib.  iv.,  cap.  L,  \  15. 


;  to 


164  HISTORY    OF    THE 

relates  that  this  king  or  this  seignior  protected  the  village,  and  that 
its  inhabitants  paid  him,  for  so  doing,  an  annual  tribute.1 

Asia  Minor  does  not  present  the  only  examples  of  this  accumula 
tion  of  men  of  the  slave  race  around  a  seignorial  castle.  The  same 
fact  is  found  in  what  Plutarch  relates  of  the  foundation  of  Athens 
by  Theseus,  and  of  Rome  by  Romulus.  There  was  this  peculiarity 
of  certain  cities  of  ancient  Greece,  that,  instead  of  being  formed 
around  a  castle,  they  were  founded  around  a  temple.  It  was  always 
a  vassalage  and  a  seigniory.  Such  were  the  cities  of  Delphos  and 
Olympia.  They  were  sacred  cities,  to  which  the  temple,  which 
was  in  the  centre,  served  as  a  safeguard ;  and  became  free  early, 
governing  themselves  and  having  jurisdiction.2  This  explains  how 
these  two  cities  were  almost  the  only  ones  of  Greece,  which  were  at 
the  same  time  cities  having  a  commune  and  not  having  walls.8 

In  our  middle  ages,  this  phenomenon  of  little  cities  founded  under 
the  protection  of  a  seignior,  baron,  or  abbe*,  is  presented  with  exactly 
the  same  characteristics  as  in  Asia  Minor,  Greece,  and  ancient  Italy. 
A  chronicler  of  the  twelfth  century  relates  that  Louis  VII.  founded, 
under  his  protection,  a  multitude  of  new  cities,  which  did  great 
wrong  to  the  monasteries  and  seigniors  of  their  vicinity,  whose  slaves 
came  thither  for  refuge.4  As  we  go  back  in  the  history  of  France, 
analogous  examples  multiply.  In  1118,  a  charter  permitted  the 
monks  of  Machecoul  to  build  a  free  borough.5  On  the  28th  July, 
noo,  another  charter  determined  and  sanctioned  the  enclosure  of 
the  borough  of  Nogaro,  in  the  territory  of  the  church  of  Sainte 
Marie  d'Auch,  which  is  at  this  day  a  principal  town  of  the  canton.8 
In  1080,  one  Archambaud  de  Liriac,  near  Ancenis,  gave  to  a  monas 
tery  lands,  on  which  to  build  a  borough. T 

When  these  nascent  cities  were  thus  founded  around  a  castle  or  a 
temple,  the  castle  or  the  temple  always  occupied  the  high  ground, 
and  the  houses  were  extended  en  echelon  on  the  plain. 

1Xenophon,  Anabasis.,  lib.  v.,  cap.  iv.,  \  26. 

2Thucydides,  lib.  v.,  chap,  xviii. 

'Xenophon,  Hellenic.,  lib.  iii.,  ch.  ii.,  g  27. 

4  Quasdam  villas  novas  aedificabit,  per  quas  plures  ecclesias  et  milites  de  pro- 
priis  suis  hominibus  ad  eas  confugientibus,  exhaeredasse  non  est  dubium.  (Apud 
Script,  rer.  Franc,  t.  xii.,  p.  286.) 

5D.  Morice,  Preuve  de  1'Hist.  de  Bretagne,  t.  i.,  col.  541. 

6Chroniq.  eccles.  d'Auch.,  part  iii.,  preuve,  p.  62. 

7  D.  Morice,  Preuve  de  PHistoire  de  Bretagne,  t.  i.,  col.  451. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  165 

For  example,  as  to  Troy,  Homer  relates  that  Dardanus,  son  of 
Jupiter,  built  his  castle  upon  a  height,  and  that  long  afterward  he 
built  in  the  plain  the  sacred  city  of  Ilium,  for  men  speaking  different 
languages,  who  had  till  then  lived  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Ida.1  It  is 
evident  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  city  of  Ilium  was  called  sacred 
because  it  served  as  an  asylum ;  and  on  the  other,  that  these  men, 
speaking  different  languages,  and  consequently  belonging  to  different 
nations,  who  lived  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Ida,  and  came  together  in 
the  city,  were  slaves  or  freedmen  ;  because  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  free  men,  nobles  of  different  nations,  should  naturally  be  found 
brought  together  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Ida.  Plato,  in  his  treatise 
on  the  laws,  speaks  of  the  advantage  which  he  had  of  possessing 
only  slaves  speaking  different  languages,  to  avoid  complots  by  the 
difficulty  of  communication.2 

To  the  example  of  Troy,  we  should  add,  among  many  others, 
that  of  Athens.  Thucydides  says  expressly  that  Athens  was  com 
menced  by  the  citadel,  which  at  first  was  all  the  city.3  Those,  who 
are  familiar  with  the  Greek  history  and  language,  know  that  nearly 
all  the  cities  had  then  within  their  enclosure  a  castle  situated  on  a 
height,  and  bearing  at  Athens  the  name  of  Acropolis,  at  Corinth 
the  name  of  Acrocorinthus,  and  so  of  others.  Thucydides  adds 
that  the  circumference  of  the  citadel,  which  had  been  formerly  all 
of  primitive  Athens,  still  bore  in  his  time  the  name  of  moxtj,  that  is 
to  say  cityf  (rtofatijf,  burgher^)  a  word  which  must  not  be  confounded 
with  oi<jT"t,  which  designated  the  modern  city.  All  the  important 
cities  of  Europe  at  this  day,  and  among  others  Paris  and  London, 
have  thus  two  names,  like  Athens.  They  are  called  city  (cite)  in 
their  ancient  part,  where  was,  at  London  the  seignorial  tower  of 
the  kings  of  England,  at  Paris  the  palace  of  the  kings  of  France ; 
and  town  (yille}  in  their  modern  part. 

Moreover,  the  building  of  seignorial  residences  on  the  heights 
and  of  the  houses  of  the  freedmen  on  the  plain,  was  a  thing  so 
noticed  by  the  ancients  that  to  designate  a  noble,  they  almost  always 
said,  "a  man  born  in  a  high  place"  and  to  designate  a  burgher, 
one  of  the  commonalty,  they  said,  "a  man  born  in  a  low  place." 
The  examples  of  this  sort  of  speech  are  so  numerous  that  we  find 

1  Iliad,  lib.  xx.,  v.  216-218.  2  Plato  de  Legibus,  lib.  vi. 

s  Thucydides,  lib.  ii.,  ch.  xv.  *  Ibid. 


l66  HISTORY    OF    THE 

some  embarrassment  in  choosing  from  them.  They  are  found  in 
Titus  Livius,1  in  Cicero,2  in  Valerius  Maximus,8  in  the  treatise  on 
illustrious  men  attributed  to  Pliny,4  and  in  a  hundred  other  places, 
into  the  detail  of  which  we  think  it  useless  to  enter.  This  mode 
of  speech  of  the  ancients  even  remains  in  our  language,  for  we  say, 
"a  high-born  man,"  "  low-born  man." 

Thus  we  are  now  certain  that  the  houses  of  the  nobles  had  the 
several  characteristics,  which  we  have  attributed  to  them,  viz.  :  that 
they  were  isolated  and  had  a  tower ;  the  isolation  to  mark  the 
seignorial  authority;  the  tower  to  mark  the  military  authority.  We 
pass  on  now  to  the  houses  of  the  burghers,  and  will  show  that  they 
were  grouped  together  in  masses,  in  blocks,  as  we  have  said,  and 
then,  for  their  common  defence,  they  were  enclosed  by  a  wall  of  cir- 
cumvallation,  and  formed  the  walled  cities. 

There  were  among  the  ancients  two  kinds  of  cities  :  some,  which 
may  be  called  cities  of  nobles  and  which  were  open ;  others,  which 
we  may  call  cities  of  burghers,  and  which  were  walled. 

The  cities  of  nobles,  were  found  among  the  peoples,  with  whom 
emancipations,  still  restricted,  had  not  produced  a  great  mass  of 
freedmen,  and  consequently  had  not  necessitated  the  establishment 
of  communes.  In  general,  the  peoples,  among  whom  emancipa 
tions  were  slow,  were  mediterranean  and  agricultural,  while  the 
islanders  and  inhabitants  of  the  coasts,  addicted  to  piracy  and  com 
merce,  arrived  much  sooner  at  the  communal  and  democratic  life.5 
The  cities  of  the  agricultural  peoples  were  open,  because  they  were 
composed  of  isolated  houses,  or  rather  because  they  were  only  an 
assemblage  of  some  strong  castles,  having  the  dwellings  of  the  serfs 
or  vassals  around  them. 

The  ancient  Sabines  were  of  these  pastoral  and  aristocratic 
peoples,  who  inhabited  open  cities.6  The  Cisalpine  Gauls  were  a 
nation  of  the  same  kind,  and  their  cities  had  no  walls.7  This  fact 

1  ...  Tanaquil  summo  loco  nata.  (Titus  Livius,  decad.  i.,  lib.  i.,  ch.  xxxiv.) 
«...  Sed  tamen  tres  fratres,  summo  loco  natos.  (Cicero,  Epist.,  lib.  ii.,  epistle 
18.) 

3  Lucius  Petronius  .  .  .  admodum  humili  loco  natus,  ad  equestrem  ordinem 
pervenerat.  (Val.  Max.  Hist.,  lib.  iv.,  ch.  vii.,  §  5.) 

4  Caius  Marius  septies  consul,  Harpinas,  humili  loco  natus.    (De  Vir.  Illust., 
incert.  auctor.,  cap.  Ixvii.,  §  i.,  A  pud  Aurel.  Victor.) 

5  Thucydides,  lib.  i.,  cap.  viii. 

6  Plutarch,  Romulus,  ch.  xvi.  7  Polybius,  lib.  ii.,  ch.  xvii.,  \  9. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  l6/ 

relative  to  the  Gauls  is  all  the  more  characteristic,  since  Polybius 
adds  that  they  lived  in  seignorial  state  and  had  vassals.1  Neither 
had  the  Germans  of  the  time  of  Tacitus,  in  their  towns,  houses 
united  by  a  party  wall,2  and  we  know  that  it  was  only  a  little  before 
the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  about  330,  that  the  Emperor 
Henri  1'Oiseleur  caused  the  cities  of  Germany  to  be  walled.  Thu- 
cydides  represents  the  Etolians,  the  Acarnanians,  and  the  Locrians 
as  people  who  were  at  the  same  time  agricultural  and  warlike, 
always  with  sword  in  hand,  like  the  barons  of  the  middle  ages.3 
Afterward  he  adds  that  they  all  inhabited  castles  in  the  centre  of 
different  boroughs,  without  walls  of  enclosure,  according  to  the 
primitive  usage  of  Greece.4  The  noble  and  open  city  most  curi 
ous  to  study  of  all  antiquity  was  Sparta.  Xenophon  says  formally, 
in  two  places,  in  the  Life  of  Agesilaus,5  and  in  the  Hellenics,6  that 
Sparta  had  no  walls.  Thucydides  affirms  the  same  fact,  and  ex 
plains  it  by  saying  that  the  city  occupied  a  great  extent  of  terri 
tory,  being  composed  of  isolated  houses,  surrounded  by  cultivated 
fields.'  It  elsewhere  appears  that  the  isolated  houses  were  seigno 
rial  residences,  castles  more  or  less  fortified  ;  for  Xenophon  relates 
that,  during  an  incursion  of  the  Thebans  into  the  territory  of  Sparta, 
the  Lacedemonians  placed  an  ambuscade  of  three  hundred  hop- 
lites  in  the  castle  of  the  Tyndarides,  which  made  part  of  the  city.8 
Plutarch  likewise  says  that  Sparta  had  no  walls,  and  he  explains 
the  fact  in  another  manner,  in  saying  that  there  was  in  the  city  no 
company  of  tradesmen,  no  trades'  union,  and  consequently  no  com 
munal  association.9  Thus,  in  recapitulating  these  three  equally  for 
mal  testimonies,  we  arrive  at  this  striking  re'sult :  First,  Xenophon 
testifies  that  Sparta  had  no  outer  walls ;  secondly,  Thucydides  tes 
tifies  that  she  had  no  party  walls  ;  thirdly,  Plutarch  testifies  that  she 
had  no  corporation  of  working-men,  and  consequently  no  com 
mune. 

1  Polybius,  lib.  ii.,  ch.  xvii.,  \  12. 

2  Ne  pati  quidem  inter  se  junctas  sedes.     Colunt  discreti  ac  diversi,  ut  fons,  ut 
campus,  ut  aemus   placuit.     Vicos  locant,  non  in  nostrum  morem,  connexis  et 
cohcerentibus  edificiis  :    suam  quique   domum  spatio  circumdat.     (Tacitus,  Ger- 
mania,  cap.  xvi.) 

3  Thucydides,  lib.  i.,  ch.  v.  *  Thucydides,  lib.  iii.,  ch.  xciv. 
5  Xenophon,  Agesilaus,  ch.  ii.,  \  24. 

*  Xenophon,  Hellenics,  lib.  vi.,  ch.  v.,  |  28.       7  Thucydides,  lib.  i.,  ch.  x. 
8  Xenophon,  Hellenics,  lib.  vi.,  ch.  v.,  \  31.        'Plutarch,  Lycurgus,  ch.  xxiv. 


l68  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Nevertheless,  as  the  theory  which  we  develop  in  this  chapter  will 
gain  nothing  by  being  specious,  if  it  is  not  solid,  and  we  desire 
to  reply  not  only  to  the  objections  of  others^  but  to  our  own,  we 
must  confess  that  these  three  imposing  witnesses,  whom  we  have 
just  cited,  appear  to  be  formally  contradicted  by  a  fourth  of  great 
weight  in  history.  Polybius  affirms  in  two  places  that  Sparta  had 
walls.1 

We  hasten  to  say  that  the  contradiction  is  only  apparent.  Xeno- 
phon  and  Thucydides  speak  of  Sparta  as  she  was  in  their  time, 
more  than  400  years  before  the  Christian  era.  Polybius  speaks  of 
Sparta  as  she  was  in  his,  only  30  years  before  the  Christian  era. 
The  walls  of  Sparta,  then,  were  only  an  accident,  since  Polybius 
speaks  expressly  of  their  demolition,  and  Plutarch,  posterior  by 
more  than  a  century  to  Polybius,  has  no  account  of  them.  We 
add  some  details,  which  confirm  instead  of  attacking  our  theory. 

In  the  mutilated  state,  in  which  the  Greek  chronicles  have  reached 
us,  the  history  of  Sparta  is  very  incomplete.  At  the  epoch  of  which 
the  fragments  of  Polybius  speak,  Sparta  had  undergone  a  popular 
revolution  ;  the  seignorial  population  of  the  city  had  been  banished, 
their  property  confiscated,  and  a  kind  of  insurrectional  commune, 
of  which  a  person  named  Chseron  appears  to  have  been  the  soul,2 
had  been  installed,  and  had  surrounded  the  city  with  walls,  which 
were  afterward  destroyed  by  the  Acheans.  Thus  —  and  this  fact 
seems  to  us  very  remarkable  —  as  long  as  Sparta  was  a  city  of 
nobles,  she  was  open,  and  when  she  became  a  communal  city  she 
was  walled. 

Moreover,  there  are  *in  the  Greek  history  of  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  two  conclusive  examples,  which 
establish,  as  we  have  said,  that  every  walled  city  was  a  communal 
city.  First,  Thucydides  relates  that  the  people  of  Samos,  having 
massacred  a  part  of  the  noble  population,  and  driven  out  the  rest, 
immediately  erected  themselves  into  a  commune,  at  the  instigation 
of  the  Athenians,8  and  immediately  afte'nvard  surrounded  with  walls 
the  city,  which  until  then  had  been  open.4  Secondly,  Xenophon 

1  Polybius,  lib.  xxii.,  fragm.  Hi.,  ch.  xii.,  \  3 ;  vii.  \  6. 

2  Polybius,  lib.  xxv.,  fragm.  v.,  ch.  vii.,  §  I. 
'Thucydides,  lib.  viii.,  ch.  xxi. 

*  Thucydides,  lib.  viii.,  ch.  iv. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  169 

relates  that  the  Spartans,  wishing  to  revenge  themselves  on  the  Man- 
tineans,  decided  to  take  from  them  the  popular  or  communal  gov 
ernment,  and  for  that  reason  ordered  them  to  demolish  their  walls, 
which  had  been  recently  built.1  The  Mantineans  having  resisted 
this  injunction,  the  Spartans  forced  them  to  resume  the  government 
of  the  nobles  ;  that  is,  they  pulled  down  the  walls  of  the  city,  and 
re-established  the  burgher  population  in  villages  around  the  castles, 
according  to  ancient  usage? 

Thus,  when  the  city  of  Samos  obtained  a  commune,  she  was  en 
closed  by  walls  ;  and  when  the  city  of  Mantinea  lost  her  commune, 
she  saw  her  walls  destroyed.  Walls  of  enclosure  are,  then,  among 
the  ancients,  as  we  have  said,  a  certain  sign  of  the  formation  of  a 
commune. 

Thus,  the  walled  cities  were  those  burgher  cities,  of  which  we  have 
spoken  above.  They  were  inhabited  by  freedmen,  they  had  a  mu 
nicipal  government,  and  their  houses  were  contiguous.  We  have 
already  seen  that  in  the  open  cities  generally,  and  especially  in  Sparta, 
the  houses  were  isolated.3  We  can  show  that  in  the  walled  cities, 
on  the  contrary,  the  houses  were  contiguous.  For  example,  as  to 
Platea,  which  was  a  walled  city,  Thucydides  gives  the  details  of  a 
siege  by  the  Thebans,  from  which  it  results  that  the  houses  had  party 
walls.4  On  the  other  hand,  every  kind  of  association  which  accom 
panies  the  commune,  is  found  in  the  walled  cities,  and  wanting  in 
the  open  cities.  Thus  all  the  closed  cities  of  Greece  had  a  public 
treasury  ;  Sparta,  which  was  an  open  city,  had  none.5  Thus  again, 
Thucydides  mentions  a  city  of  Boeotia,  named  Mycalessa,  which 
had  a  public  school,6  an  infallible  sign  of  a  commune,  because  noble 
families  have  all  their  children  educated  by  private  tutors.  Now,  * 
he  immediately  adds  that  the  city  was  walled.7  Finally,  Xenophon 
speaks  of  Tegea,  a  city  which  had  a  communal  house,  town  hall, 
(hotel  de  ville,)  and  Tegea  was  enclosed  with  walls.8 

At  first,  however,  the  burgher  houses  were  not  built  in  blocks, 

1  Thucydides,  lib.  viii.,  ch.  li.;  Xenoph.,  Hellen.,  lib.  v.,  ch.  ii.,  §  i. 

2  Xenophon,  Hellen.,  lib.  v,,  ch.  ii.,  $  7.         3  Thucydides,  lib.  i.,  ch.  iii. 

4  Thucydides,  lib.  ii.,  ch.  iii.  5  Thucydides,  lib.  i  ,  ch.  Ixxx. 

6  Thucydides,  lib.  vii.,  ch.  xxix.  7  Thucydides,  lib.  vii.,  ch.  xxix. 

6  There  is  a  passage  which  says  that  the  Thebans,  having  taken  Tegea  and  many 
prisoners,  filled  the  city  prison  and  the  town  hall  with  them  ;  and  a  passage  in  the 
same  chapter  proves  that  Tegea  had  walls.  (Xenoph.,  Hellen.,  lib.  vii.,ch.  iv.,  $36. 

12 


Vw^ 


V 

IXXVv 


I^O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

neither  had  they  a  party  wall.  The  first  freedmen  and  fugitives 
were  too  poor  to  build  houses  of  stone ;  and,  strictly  speaking,  it  was 
not  until  a  large  number  of  them  had  been  brought  together  at  one 
point  and  had  somewhat  improved  their  primitive  settlements,  that 
street  and  road  laws  came  into  existence  and  introduced  some  regu 
larity  into  what  may  be  called  the  police  of  houses.  In  taking  for 
example  the  history  of  the  Roman  road  laws,  all  these  ideas  come 
to  light  and  are  wonderfully  strengthened.  Thus,  although  Rome 
had  a  species  of  commune  from  her  foundation,  this  commune  did 
not  take  the  essential  characteristics  of  a  municipality  until  toward 
the  year  of  Rome  260,  at  the  time  of  the  creation  of  the  tribunes 
and  aediles,  a  creation  which  established  a  burgher  magistracy  with 
a  civil  jurisdiction,  analogous  to  the  right  of  magistracy  established 
in  the  communes  of  France,  until  the  Edict  of  Moulins,  under 
Charles  IX.  Also  we  find  that  before  the  complete  formation  of 
the  Roman  commune,  that  is  to  say,  before  the  creation  of  aediles, 
the  regularly  built  houses,  which  all  belonged  to  the  nobility,  were 
isolated  one  from  the  other.1  Tacitus  also  testifies  that  after  the 
burning  of  Rome  by  the  Gauls,  in  the  year  390  B.  C.,  and  conse 
quently  fifty-three  years  before  the  entry  of  the  burghers  into  the 
prsetorship,  which  took  place  in  the  year  of  Rome  416,  and  which 
was  the  veritable  sanction  of  the  communal  institution,  the  houses 
were  separated  from  each  other  within  the  enclosure  of  the  city.2 
This  state  of  ancient  Rome  may  be  compared  to  the  state  of  ancient 
Paris,  filled  with  mansions  with  battlemented  towers,  and  where  even 
the  burgher  houses  were  mostly  separated,  because  they  were  built 
on  small  lands  held  by  feudal  tenure. 

It  was  by  degrees,  and  principally  toward  the  time  of  the  em 
perors,  that  the  burgher  houses  of  Rome  were  grouped  in  blocks, 
always  excepting  the  dwellings  of  the  nobles,  which  remained  for 
a  long  time  still  separated.  With  Augustus  commenced  the  urban 
services,  which  were  the  result  of  this  new  order  of  things.  He 
fixed  the  height  of  houses,  so  that  one  should  not  intercept  the 
light  of  the  other.3  Under  Nero  appeared  the  laws  produced  by 

1  This  results  from  the  terms  of  the  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  relative  to  build 
ings,  and  which  is  thus  mentioned  by  Varro :  Ambitus,  iter  quod  circumeundo 
teritur;  nam  ambitus  circumitus,  ab  eoque  Duodecim  Tabularum  interpretes  am 
bitus  parietis  circumitum  esse  describunt.  (Varro,  de  Lingua  Latina,  lib.  iv.) 

3  Tacitus,  Annals,  lib.  xv.,  cap.  xliii.          »  Strabo,  Geograph.,  lib.  v.,  cap.  iii. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  171 

the  party  wall,  and  which,  in  the  laws  upon  services,  bear  the 
names  of  oneris  ferendi,  tigni  immittendi,  non  officiendi  luminibus, 
and  some  others.  Thus  houses  required  nearly  eight  centuries  in 
passing  from  the  system  of  isolation  to  that  of  association,  just  the 
time  required  for  the  freedmen  to  enter  the  senate,  and  to  conquer 
without  dispute  a  participation  in  political  affairs.  Plutarch,  re 
counting  the  privilege  granted  by  the  Roman  senate  to  Valerius 
Publicola  for  his  great  services,  of  opening  the  door  of  his  house 
outward,  adds  that  anciently  all  the  doors  of  Greece  opened  in 
this  way.1  This  independence  of  the  houses  and  the  species  of 
seigniory  which  they  exercised  around  them,  even  on  the  public 
highway,  is  the  characteristic  of  the  epoch  anterior  to  the  estab 
lishment  of  the  freedom  of  cities,  and  the  point  of  departure  for 
architecture ;  the  urban  services,  commencing  under  Augustus  and 
completed  under  Nero,  are  the  characteristics  of  the  epoch  essen 
tially  municipal,  and  the  point  of  arrival  for  architecture.2  She 
has  for  alpha  the  door  opening  outward  and  the  tower  ;  for  omega, 
the  door  opening  inward  and  the  party  wall. 

Now  it  must  be  comprehended  that  the  wall  of  enclosure  is  the 
natural  and  necessary  complement  of  burgher  houses,  constructed 
en  pate,  that  is,  associated,  and  that  it  is  to  a  commune  what  a  line 
of  circumvallation  is  to  a  camp.  The  wall  is  in  effect  the  unity  of 
defence  applied  to  the  multiplied  interests  drawn  together,  com 
bined  and  united.  Generally,  the  isolated  house,  the  castle,  has 
no  wall  of  enclosure,  being  itself  a  sort  of  citadel  with  its  tower. 
The  burgher  house,  on  the  contrary,  is  much  too  poor  to  have  ks 
own  tower ;  it  is  united  to  its  equals  in  blocks,  and  all  together, 
as  one  and  the  same  corporation,  are  surrounded  by  one  and 
the  same  wall,  which  is  their  common  defence.  It  is  to  be  re 
marked  in  history  that  as  soon  as  a  slave,  in  consequence  of  some 
political  revolution,  becomes  ennobled,  or  even  a  burgher,  he  at 
once  hastens  to  give  to  his  poor  house  the  distinctive  sign  of  no- 

1  Plutarch,  Publicola,  ch.  xx. 

2  This  distinction  between  doors  opening  outward  and  doors  opening  inward 
was  profound  in  the  ideas  of  the  Romans.     The  former  were  called  fores,  and 
the  latter/#«w#.     It  results  from  a  passage  of  Tertullian  that  Janus  was  the  god 
who  presided  over  the  latter,  and  Foreculus  the  god  who  presided  over  the 
former.     See  this  passage  :  At  enim  Christianus  nee  januam  suam  laureis  infama- 
bit,  si  novit  quantos  deos  etiam  ostiis  diabolus  affixerit,  Janum  a  Janua  .  .  .  Fore- 
culum  a  foribus.  (Tertul.  de  Corona,  cap.  xiii.) 


1/2  HISTORY    OF    THE 

bility,  which  is  the  battlemented  tower.  The  serf  of  the  church  of 
Veselay,  who  showed  himself  the  boldest  in  the  revolt  against  the 
abbe,  during  the  insurrection,  and  the  attempt  to  establish  a  com 
mune,  built  a  superb  tower  to  his  hut,  and  certainly  one  of  his 
greatest  griefs  must  have  been  to  see  it  fall  under  the  victorious 
hammer  of  the  chapter.1  (a) 

The  wall  of  enclosure  is  not  the  only  monument  of  unity  which 
the  communal  association  has  produced.  There  is  the  town  hall, 
the  hotel  de  ville,  which  is  to  the  civil  side  of  the  commune  what 
the  wall  of  enclosure  is  to  the  military.  Considered  in  its  unity, 
the  commune  has  a  seignorial  existence  ;  it  has  its  law,  its  judge, 
its  gallows,  its  hangman.  Being  thus  sovereign,  it  gives  place  for 
an  architecture,  which  enters  into  the  conditions  of  the  architecture 
of  the  nobility,  that  is  to  say,  which  ends  in  an  isolated  house  with 
its  tower  ;  with  this  difference,  nevertheless,  that  it  in  a  manner 
divides  up  this  house,  only  preserving  at  the  centre  its  hearth,  which 
is  the  seat  of  justice  in  the  town  hall,  and  moving  its  tower,  which 
is  the  symbol  of  its  power,  to  the  ramparts. 

We  believe  that  we  have  now  sufficiently  established  by  all  the 
considerations  we  have  presented,  that  a  city  has  walls  of  enclosure 
only  when  the  houses  have  not  towers,  when  they  are  not  isolated ; 
that  is,  when  they  are  built  in  blocks  and  with  party  walls,  and  that 
these  two  last  characteristics  are  an  infallible  sign  of  a  free  borough. 
Whence  we  conclude  that  whenever  we  find  a  walled  city  in  the 
primitive  books,  it  is  a  proof  that  they  were  composed  at  an  epoch 
when  a  communal  institution  existed. 

Thus  the  Hebrews  had  communes  from  the  time  of  Moses,  since 
mention  is  made  of  walled  cities  in  many  places  of  Leviticus  ;  and 
the  Greeks  from  the  time  of  Homer,  since  the  city  of  Troy  was 
enclosed  by  a  wall.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  among  the  large 

1  Hugues  de  Poitiers,  Chron.  de  Veselay,  liv.  iv. 

(a)  This  remark  of  our  author  calls  to  mind  the  fact,  that  Senator  Wilson,  of 
Massachusetts,  originally  a  shoemaker,  having  grown  rich  by  politics,  now  be 
longs  to,  and  is  a  leader  of,  that  party,  which  carried  fire  and  sword  through  the 
Southern  States,  in  order  to  "  make  free  labor  cheaper  than  slave  labor  ;  "  to  reduce 
the  wages  of  white  shoemakers  below  the  cost  of  feeding  and  clothing  a  negro ; 
and  whose  whole  legislation  is  intended,  and  tends,  to  cheapen  labor  and  enrich 
capital. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  173 

number  of  cities  named  in  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  Homer  men 
tions  with  great  care  those  that  had  walls,  and  that  the  number  was 
very  inconsiderable  as  compared  to  the  number  of  those  that  had 
none.  There  are  near  a  hundred  cities,  at  least,  cited  by  Homer, 
and  of  this  number  four  only  had  walls,  including  Troy,  namely, 
Thyrintha,  Gortyna,  and  Calydon.1 

We  would  not  insist  longer  on  this  point,  if  the  matter  of  which 
we  treat  was  not  so  new  and  unusual,  and  if  the  historic  theory,  which 
we  present,  had  not  so  many  chances  of  passing  for  strange  and 
paradoxical.  We  do  not  attach  too  much  importance  to  the  serious 
difficulties,  which  may  be  opposed  to  what  we  have  said.  Never 
theless,  we  do  not  wish  to  seem  to  advance  lightly  opinions  on  such 
grave  matters.  We  therefore  present  another  kind  and  series  of 
proofs  establishing  beyond  reply,  as  it  seems  to  us,  that  walled 
cities  are  really  burgher  or  communal  cities. 


CHAPTER   X. 

SYMPTOMS    OF   THE   ANCIENT   COMMUNE JURISPRUDENCE. 

THE  new  proofs  by  which  we  have  to  establish  the  existence  of 
the  ancient  communes,  belong  to  the  history  of  jurisprudence, 
and  are  drawn  from  the  fundamental  difference  to  be  observed  be 
tween  property  within  the  enclosure  of  a  city,  and  property  without 
its  walls. 

As  in  the  preceding  chapter,  we  are  forced  again  for  a  moment 
to  leave  our  subject  and  make  a  digression  before  pursuing  our  route. 
We  are  convinced  that  the  history  of  property  would  aid  us  to  prove 
that  with  the  ancients  walled  cities  were  always,  as  we  have  said, 
municipal  cities ;  but  the  history  of  property  has  not  been  written 
any  more  than  the  history  of  architecture.  We  will  therefore  essay 
to  sketch  it,  but  only  within  the  limits  that  the  necessity  of  the  sub 
ject  imposes,  and  will  give  to  it  only  that  just  degree  of  importance 
necessary  to  present  its  results. 

1  Iliad,  lib.  ii.,  v,  559,  v.  646;  lib.  ix.,  v.  552. 


174  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Taking  property  in  its  most  general  aspects  and  in  its  most  sum 
mary  history,  we  find  that  it  is  always  constituted  from  the  same 
point  of  view  as  the  family ;  and  this  is  what  we  understand  by  these 
words. 

There  is  an  order  of  families  which  are,  if  we  may  so  speak,  con 
stituted  to  last  always,  and  always  in  the  same  condition ;  in  which 
the  son  is  the  exact  continuation  of  the  father  in  his  rights,  in  his 
prerogatives,  and  in  his  actions ;  and  in  which  the  first  and  most 
sacred  of  all  duties  is  to  maintain  and  leave  after  him  all  things  in 
the  state,  in  which  they  were  maintained  and  left  by  his  ancestors. 
These  are  the  noble  families. 

There  is  another  order  of  families,  of  which  it  may  be  said  that 
they  recommence  with  every  generation  ;  in  which  there  is  no  pre 
cise  domestic  tradition  necessary  to  be  observed  under  penalty  of 
historic  loss,  and  in  which  the  sons  are  much  more  occupied  in 
establishing  and  building  up  themselves  than  in  continuing  their 
ancestors.  These  are  the  burgher  families. 

Now  history  proves  that  in  these  two  orders  of  families,  property 
is  constituted  like  the  families  themselves ;  that  is,  it  is  perpetual 
and  entailed  in  the  first,  movable  and  alienable  in  the  second. 

What  we  have  said  of  property  in  the  two  kinds  of  families  which 
fill  history,  and  which  are  the  family  of  the  man  of  noble  race,  and 
the  family  of  the  man  of  slave  race,  is  fully  confirmed  by  the  pro 
perty  of  another  species  of  family,  which  is,  if  one  may  so  speak, 
the  third  of  the  genus,  the  corporation.  The  corporation,  in  effect, 
whether  religious,  commercial,  or  communal,  constitutes  in  a  meas 
ure  a  family,  in  that  it  is  reproduced.  Now  the  corporation  is  not 
only  reproduced,  but  it  is  reproduced  perpetually.  Its  members 
die,  but  it  is  renewed  and  lives  always.  Well,  the  property  of  the 
corporation,  which  has  the  characteristic  of  the  noble  family  in  that 
it  is  perpetual,  is  always  entailed  and  inalienable,  like  the  property 
of  the  noble  family.  We  will  return  to  this  subject. 

Property,  we  have  said,  is  always  constituted  like  the  family. 
We  have  added  to  these  words  the  explanation  they  require.  The 
family  is  constituted  in  two  ways,  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
noble  races  and  according  to  the  nature  of  the  slave  races ;  or  rather 
there  are  two  sorts  of  families.  There  are,  then,  two  sorts  of  pro 
perty.  Let  us  take  first  noble  property. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  175 

Noble  property  corresponds  to  the  noble  family,  and  undergoes 
the  same  number  of  revolutions.  Now  the  noble  family  has  two 
ways  of  being  successive.  Primitively,  as  we  have  established,  all 
the  noble  family  was  in  the  father,  and-  was  summed  up  in  him.  The 
father  absorbed  the  wife,  the  son,  the  daughter,  the  servant,  all 
persons  that  had  neither  right  nor  individuality  outside  of  his  will, 
who  were  less  persons  than  things.  In  this  state  of  the  noble  family 
the  property  in  land  resided  in  the  father  as  absolutely  as  the  pro 
perty  in  the  persons  and  life  of  the  wife,  son,  daughter,  and  servant. 
In  this  first  period,  therefore,  noble  property  was  alienable :  the 
father  could  sell  his  land  as  he  could  sell  his  posterity. 

But  little  by  little  —  and  what  we  call  civilization  consists  in  this 
—  the  wife,  son,  daughter,  and  servant,  withdrew  from  the  paternal 
restraint,  acquired  a  personality  at  first  doubtful,  then  more  com 
plete  and  solid,  and  ended  by  existing  in  their  own  proper  names. 
Then  the  rights  of  the  fathers  were  no  longer  sole,  absolute,  and 
without  limits  in  the  family ;  on  the  contrary,  they  ended  where 
those  of  the  wife,  son,  daughter,  and  servants  began.  This  new 
state  of  the  noble  family  is  developed  in  history,  as  to  the  wife  by 
the  establishment  of  dower ;  as  to  the  son  and  daughter,  by  the 
establishment  of  the  child's  portion  ;  as  to  the  servants,  by  the  estab 
lishment  of  wages.  In  this  second  period,  noble  property  ceases 
to  depend  absolutely  upon  the  father,  becomes  inalienable  and  en 
tailed,  and  passes  to  his  descendants  in  spite  of  him. 

We  add  that  when  democracy  dominates  society  and  absorbs  the 
nobility,  noble  families  are  dissolved  and  noble  property  disappears. 
Thus  there  have  been  years  when  entailed  and  inalienable  property 
came  to  be  destroyed  in  France. 

The  proofs  of  what  we  have  said  are  easy  and  numerous.  But  as 
this  matter  belongs  more  especially  to  the  history  of  the  noble  races, 
we  ask  permission  to  give  here  only  those  indispensable  to  an  under 
standing  of  the  subject. 

The  first  period  of  noble  property,  that  is  to  say,  of  property  de 
pendent  on  the  absolute  will  of  the  father,  is  so  ancient  that  it  had 
even  disappeared  when  the  primitive  books  commenced,  and  can 
only  be  established  by  induction.  The  second  period  of  noble 
property,  that  is  to  say,  the  period  of  entailed  property,  belongs  to 
historic  times. 


1/  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Among  the  Hebrews,  entailed  property  existed  fully  for  the 
sacerdotal  races  from  the  time  of  Moses,  as  we  will  see  presently ; 
and  it  had  not  long  ceased  to  exist  for  the  noble  races ;  for  the  law 
of  jubilee,  by  which  all  property  necessarily  returned  to  the  family 
after  seven  times  seven  years  of  alienation,  evidently  succeeded  to 
entails,  by  which  no  property  ever  left  these  families. 

Among  the  Greeks,  entails  were  abolished  from  the  time  of  Solon, 
according  to  Plutarch,  who  expressly  says  that  up  to  that  time 
fathers  of  families  had  not  the  right  of  making  a  will.1 

Among  the  Romans,  a  people  having  communal  institutions,  en 
tails  disappeared  very  early.  But  we  find  a  first  trace  of  them  in  the 
sacred,  that  is  to  say,  noble  (the  nobles  being  the  sons  of  the  gods) 
character  of  the  Ager  Romanus?  and  a  second  in  the  judicial  action 
for  the  sale  of  lands,  which  was  introduced  very  tardily,  only  in 
the  648th  year  of  Rome,  by  the  praetor  Publius  Rutilius.3 

In  France,  the  two  periods  of  noble  property  were  developed 
successively  and  established  under  our  eyes.  Down  to  an  epoch, 
which  we  will  not  undertake  to  fix  precisely,  but  which  must  have 
been  near  the  eighth  century,  fathers  had  the  absolute  right  to  give 
away  or  sell  their  lands.  By  degrees  came  restrictions,  which 
limited  their  authority.  Thus,  toward  the  ninth  century  we  find  a 
multitude  of  public  acts,  in  which  fathers  made  their  wives  and  even 
the  infant  at  the  breast  parties,  to  have  the  power  of  selling  or  giving 
away.  We  do  not  now  cite  any  of  these  acts  because  of  the  diffi 
culty  of  choosing  one  rather  than  another. 

At  that  time  entails,  then,  were  progressing  toward  their  estab 
lishment  ;  and  what  is  singularly  curious,  we  find  how  they  pro 
gressed  toward  their  fall.  At  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  came 
other  laws,  providing  that,  if  a  noble  wished  to  sell  his  land, 

1  Plutarch,  Solon,  ch.  xxi. 

2  We  will  treat,  in  the  history  of  the  noble  races,  of  the  nature  of  the  Ager 
Romanus,  which  was  a  noble  property,  and  could  not  be  held  by  freedmen.     We 
limit  ourselves  to  giving  its  exterior  characteristics.     Limites  sunt  in  agris  limi- 
tatis,  qui  populo  iter  prsebent,  ex  lege  Sempronia.  ...  Ex  eis  alii  sunt  Decumani 
Maximi,  qui  fiunt   ab  oriente  in  occidentem,  alii  Cardines  Maximi,  qui  ex  trans- 
verso  currunt,  alii  Actuarii,  alii  Subruncivi.     Decumani  .  .  .  pedes  xl.,  Cardines 
pedes  xx.,  Actuarii  pedes  xii.,  Subruncivi  pedes  viii.  habent.  (Jacob.  Cujac.  Ol> 
servat.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  ix.) 

8  Quae  species  actionis  appellatur  Rutiliana,  quia  a  praetore  Publio  Rutilio,  qui 
et  bonorum  venditionem  introduxisse  dicitur,  comparata  est.  (Gaii  Instil.,  lib.  iv., 
235-) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES. 

the  next  of  blood  should  buy  it  j  if  the  next  of  blood  could  not, 
then  the  next  after  him,  and  so  on ;  if  none  of  the  blood  could  buy 
it,  then,  when  it  was  well  established  that  it  could  not  remain  in 
the  family,  the  father  was  free  to  sell  it  to  a  stranger.  These  laws 
add  that,  even  in  that  case,  the  relatives  have  seven  days  to  annul 
the  sale.1 

We  have  assimilated  corporations  to  noble  families.  It  was  their 
nature  to  last  always,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  certain  that  their 
property  was  entailed.  As  to  the  property  of  commercial  or  in 
dustrial  corporations,  we  will  establish  their  entailed  character  in 
the  chapters,  in  which  we  will  treat  of  the  trades'  unions.  We  will 
only  say  two  words  as  to  the  property  of  the  religious  corporations 
of  Christendom.  Pope  Urban  VIII.  was  the  first,  who  departed 
from  the  jurisprudence  of  the  canons,  which  sanctioned  the  per 
petual  inalienability  of  the  property  of  the  Church  ;2  to  which  we 
should  add  that  the  beginning  of  the  departure  goes  back  to  Paul 
II. ,  who  permitted  alienations  for  three  years  by  papal  authority.3 

The  burgher  family  commences  precisely  where  the  noble  family 
ends.  When  the  father  has  lost  all  his  primitive  authority  over  his 
wife  and  children ;  when  the  latter  acquire  a  distinct  individuality 
and  personal  rights  well  established  ;  when  the  son  and  the  daughter, 
detached  from  their  ancestors,  go  where  their  own  will  leads  them ; 
when  there  is  no  longer  a  first-born,  who  represents  and  sums  up  in 
himself  the  traditions  of  the  family ;  when  the  whole  family  crum 
bles  and  falls  apart,  like  a  too-ripened  head  of  grain;  then  the  noble 
family  ends,  and  the  burgher  family  begins. 

Thus  burgher  property  is  essentially  movable,  like  the  species 
of  family,  of  which  it  forms  the  material  side.  In  all  legislations  it 
has  always  preserved  its  special  character  of  alienability,  and  the 
power  of  entailment  has  never  been  given  to  it.  It  even  appears 
certain,  judging  at  least  from  past  history,  without  occupying  our 
selves  with  what  the  future  may  produce,  that  it  is  in  the  nature  of 
property  to  escape  from  the  immobility,  which  attaches  to  it  in  the 
first  ages  of  history,  and  that  progress  consists  for  it,  as  for  the  chil 
dren  and  wives  of  the  heroic  and  divine  fathers,  in  withdrawing 

1  Assis.  de  Jerusal.,  Cour  des  Bourg.,  ch.  xxviii.,  copie  de  manuscrit  de  Venise, 
biblioth.  du  roi. 

2  Bull.  Magn.  Constitut.  Urban  VIII.,  715,  \  I. 

3  Bull.  Magn.  Pauli  II.,  Constit.  2,  g  I. 


i;8  HISTORY    OF    THE 

itself  from  the  absorbent  action  of  the  primitive  family,  to  acquire  a 
value  of  its  own,  individual,  distinct,  and,  as  it  were,  a  sort  of  per 
sonality.  At  this  day,  France  is  the  country  o/  the  world,  in  which 
property  has  gone  through  the  most  successive  evolutions,  and  in 
which  it  is  completely  detached  from  the  family,  or  rather  individ 
ualized  and  mobilized,  like  the  family.  The  law  in  relation  to  en 
tails  upon  the  eldest  son  was  the  last  blow  struck  at  the  old  im 
movable  and  entailed  property;  and  probably  those,  who  were  its 
promoters,  little  dreamed  of  the  species  of  necessary  and  providen 
tial  functions,  which  they  filled  at  that  moment. 

Whenever,  then,  we  meet  in  the  ancient  books  a  movable  and 
alienable  property,  we  cannot  avoid  recognizing  in  it  a  burgher  pro 
perty,  for  the  reason  that  the  ancient  books  are  not  so  old  as  to  show 
us  noble  property,  before  it  entered  upon  the  immobility  of  entails, 
or  are  too  old  to  show  it,  after  it  had  escaped  from  it.  The  mobility 
of  property  in  the  ancient  books  is  therefore  as  certain  an  index  of 
the  existence  of  free  boroughs,  as  mendicancy  is  of  the  existence 
of  emancipations. 

In  the  Bible,  for  example,  movable  and  alienable  property  is  only 
found  in  the  walled  cities.  In  the  first  place,  Moses,  when  he  speaks 
of  cities,  always  takes  great  care  to  indicate  whether  they  were  open 
or  walled.  Thus,  when  he  sent  twelve  commissioners  to  spy  out  the 
promised  land,  he  instructed  them  to  examine  the  fertility  of  the 
land,  what  cities  there  were,  whether  they  had  walls  or  not.1  In 
Leviticus,  property  was  entailed  and  alienable  only  for  forty-nine 
years,  (#)  after  which  the  first  possessors  retook  it,2  which  was,  as  we 
have  said,  an  improvement  on  the  primitive  epoch,  when  it  was  ab 
solutely  inalienable ;  but  this  property  was  noble  property,  because 
burgher  property  is  movable  and  alienable.  The  proof  of  this  is 
found  in  chapter  xxv. ,  where  it  is  said  that  if  a  house  is  sold  in  a 
walled  city  and  the  owner  shall  not  have  redeemed  it  within  a  year, 

1  And  see  the  land  . . .  and  what  the  land  is  that  they  dwell  in,  whether  it  be  good 
or  bad,  and  what  cities  they  be  that  they  dwell  in,  whether  in  tents  or  in  strong 
holds.  (Numb.,  ch.  xiii.,  verses  18  and  19,  as  published  by  the  American  Bille 
Society,  1850.) 

(a)  In  the  original  there  is  a  misprint  of  seven  for  seven  times  seven,  or  forty- 
nine,  years. 

"Levit.  xxxv.  8,  II,  13. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  179 

it  was  aliened  forever ; l  and  the  thirty-first  verse  adds,  that  if  this 
house  was  in  a  village  without  walls,  it  was  subject  to  the  law  that 
governed  lands,  that  is  to  say,  to  the  law  of  the  nobles,  to  the  law 
of  entails,  and  the  first  possessor  should  retake  it  in  the  fiftieth,  or 
year  of  jubilee.  A  last  very  characteristic  trait  to  be  added  to  all  this 
is  that  verse  fifty-four  expressly  forbids  the  sale  of  anything  in  the 
suburbs,  that  is  to  say,  without  the  walls,  where  all  was  entailed, 
lands  and  houses,  (a) 

There  were,  therefore,  among  the  Jews,  two  different  civil  laws, 
which  governed  property,  according  as  it  was  found  within  or  with 
out  the  walls  of  a  city ;  and  such  was  the  importance  of  these  walls 
of  enclosure,  that  is  to  say,  such  was  the  difference  between  the  two 
sorts  of  society,  which  they  separated,  that  on  one  side,  property  had 
a  certain  nature,  on  the  other,  an  opposite  nature  ;  on  one  side,  it  was 
alienable  and  commercial ;  on  the  other,  immovable  and  entailed. 

Now  the  history  of  property,  which  we  have  only  sketched,  but 
which  will  be  fully  treated  in  the  volume  on  the  noble  classes,  proves 
that  salable  or  alienable  lands  are  always  either  a  burgher  pro 
perty,  or  a  noble  property  in  its  first  or  last  degree  of  development. 
It  is  to  be  remarked,  that  neither  of  these  two  latter  cases  could  be 
that  spoken  of  in  Leviticus,  not  only  because  noble  property  was 
then  entailed,  but  also  because  it  was  still  when  the  book  of  Ruth 2 
was  composed,  and  even  when  Jeremiah  wrote.3  We  must  therefore 
necessarily  conclude  that  the  alienable  property  of  walled  cities  was 

1  Levit.  xxv.  29-31. 

(a)  And  if  a  man  sell  a  dwelling  house  in  a  walled  city,  then  he  may  redeem  it 
within  a  whole  year  after  it  is  sold ;  within  a  full  year  may  he  redeem  it.  And  if  it 
be  not  redeemed  within  the  space  of  a  full  year,  then  the  house  that  is  in  the  walled 
city  shall  be  established  forever  to  him  that  bought  it,  throughout  his  generations ; 
it  shall  not  go  out  in  the  jubilee.  But  the  houses  of  the  villages,  which  have  no 
walls  round  about  them,  shall  be  counted  as  the  fields  of  the  country ;  they  may 
be  redeemed,  and  they  shall  go  out  in  the  jubilee.  Notwithstanding  the  cities  of 
the  Levites  and  the  houses  of  the  cities  of  their  possession  may  the  Levites  re 
deem  at  any  time.  And  if  a  man  purchase  of  the  Levites,  then  the  house  that 
was  sold  and  the  city  of  his  possession  shall  go  out  in  the  year  of  jubilee ;  for 
the  houses  of  the  cities  of  the  Levites  are  their  possession  among  the  children  of 
Israel.  But  the  field  of  the  suburbs  of  their  cities  may  not  be  sold,  for  it  is  their 
perpetual  possession.  (Levit.  xxv.  29-34.) 

2  Ruth  iv.  3,  4.  3  Jeremiah  xxxii.  7,  8. 


ISO  HISTORY    OF    THE 

a  burgher  property,  which  establishes  that  there  was  a  free  govern 
ment  in  those  cities,  a  thing  already  proved  by  the  very  fact  of  their 
walls.  « 

We  are  thus  brought  back  to  what  we  have  already  said  at  the 
beginning  of  our  two  chapters  on  the  history  of  architecture  and 
the  history  of  property,  viz.,  that  all  the  walled  cities  mentioned  in 
the  primitive  books  were  burgher  cities,  in  which  there  already  was 
a  commune.  And  as,  if  that  were  not  true,  many  things  in  relation 
to  houses  and  property,  otherwise  undeniable,  must  be  false,  we  do 
not  think  it  possible  to  dispute  with  us  this  result.  We  should, 
nevertheless,  here  again  repeat  that  all  this  history  of  the  slave 
races  will  be  otherwise  clear,  plain,  and  evident,  after  our  history 
of  the  noble  races ;  so  that  if  we  cannot  now  remove  every  mist 
from  our  ideas,  that  mist  will  be  certainly  dissipated,  we  hope,  as 
we  shall  sufficiently  develop  and  support  those  views.  The  com 
mentary  will  be  found  in  the  whole. 

Meanwhile  —  and  we  think  we  have  done  enough  to  be  pardoned 
for  this  boldness,  if  it  is  one  —  we  lay  it  down  as  an  established 
principle  that  communes  existed  among  the  Jews  from  the  time  of 
Moses,  and  among  the  Greeks  from  the  time  of  Homer,  and  we 
draw  this  certainty  from  the  walled  cities  mentioned  in  the  Penta 
teuch  and  in  the  Iliad. 

We  should  say,  without  more  delay,  that  we  do  not  pretend  that 
the  communes  of  Jericho  and  of  Troy  exactly  resembled  those  of  the 
thirteenth  century — for  example,  those  of  Soissons  and  of  Rheims; 
that  is  to  say,  that  they  had  exactly  the  same  administrative  forms 
and  the  same  number  of  magistrates.  We  have  already  shown  that 
the  details  of  the  administrative  organization  are  not  what  constitute 
essentially  the  commune ;  and  that  the  number,  the  functions,  and 
the  names  of  the  administrators  amount  to  nothing ;  but  what  we 
firmly  believe  is  that  there  was  in  Jericho,  Troy,  Calydon,  and 
Gortina,  in  the  small  number  of  walled  cities  mentioned  by  Moses 
and  Homer,  an  association  of  men  of  the  freed  races,  living  apart 
from  the  noble  races,  having  their  own  statutes,  their  own  distinct 
civil  law,  their  own  separate  administration ;  and  it  is  in  this  asso 
ciation  of  organized  freedmen  that  we  make  the  commune  to  con 
sist,  whatever  may  otherwise  have  been  the  mechanism  of  that 
organization ;  whether  there  was  one  chief,  or  two ;  whether  he 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  iSl 

was  called  consul,  mayor,  prevot,  or  e*chevin.  We  believe,  more 
over,  that  these  primitive  communes  were  organized  spontaneously, 
gradually,  day  by  day  a  little,  without  premeditated  agreement, 
without  precise  purpose,  without  a  plan  for  the  future,  without  any 
preconceived  political  theory;  and  that,  nevertheless,  for  having 
been  thus  formed  peaceably,  insensibly,  without  noise,  revolt,  or 
massacre,  they  were  none  the  less  communes,  as  well,  as  completely, 
as  those  of  Laon  and  Cambray,  in  which  rebellion  and  murder  were, 
in  our  opinion,  only  local  circumstances  and  fortuitous  accidents, 
without  general  value  or  human  signification. 

To  sum  up  the  progress  of  this  book  to  the  point  to  which  we 
have  brought  it,  we  have  taken  the  slave  races  in  the  bosom  of 
the  primitive  family,  and  have  followed  them  up  to  the  moment, 
when,  being  sufficiently  numerous,  they  have  obtained  from  their 
masters,  their  seigniors,  the  faculty  of  living  apart,  of  organizing, 
of  creating  for  themselves  a  government  humble,  lowly,  obscure, 
despised  —  the  commune.  We  have  shown  the  communal  govern 
ment  forming,  little  by  little,  in  every  country,  in  the  East  and  in 
the  West,  as  slaves  were  emancipated. 

Nevertheless,  the  freedmen,  who  organized  into  communes,  who 
were  grouped  around  some  seignorial  castle,  temple,  or  church,  and 
who  thus,  in  building  poor  villages,  laid  the  foundations  of  future 
great  cities,  did  not  constitute  all*  the  freedmen.  Independently 
of  those,  whom  a  professional  industry  permitted  to  choose  a  resi 
dence  at  their  pleasure,  and  to  shut  themselves  up  within  walls, 
there  were  still  those,  whom  agricultural  or  pastoral  life  retained 
forcibly  in  the  fields.  By  the  side  of  the  burghers  were  the  peasants. 

Thus  we  have  another  moiety  of  the  freed  races,  of  whose  mode 
of  administrative  association  we  should  give  some  account.  The 
peasants  did  not  have  the  commune  :  what,  then,  had  they? 


l82  HISTORY    OF    THE 

CHAPTER    XI.     * 

THE  PEASANTS. 

AMONG  the  innumerable  writers  who  have  treated  of  the 
ancients,  none  have  dreamed  of  sketching  the  history  of  the 
peasants.  They  have  mentioned  the  cities  and  their  inhabitants, 
for  a  thousand  different  reasons  :  because  they  were  the  residences 
of  princes ;  because  they  were  the  schools  of  philosophy  and  litera 
ture  ;  because  they  sustained  sieges  ;  in  fine,  because  they  were  the 
cause,  the  victim,  or  the  theatre  of  some  great  fact  of  a  nature  to 
resound  among  men ;  but  for  the  peasants,  who  were  dispersed 
through  the  country,  poor,  ignorant,  obscure,  powerless,  no  one 
has  thought  of  them.  Nevertheless,  the  order  of  peasants  made 
part  of  the  whole  body  of  the  ancient  peoples,  as  well  as  the  order 
of  senators.  Although  the  peasants  were  in  some  sort  hidden  in  the 
political  life  of  antiquity,  though  they  were  not  prominent,  though 
they  did  not  strike  the  eye,  they  were  none  the  less  there.  Neither 
do  we  see  the  roots  of  trees  nor  the  foundations  of  walls  ;  but  for 
all  that  there  is  no  wall  without  a  foundation,  no  tree  without  roots. 
But  in  reading  the  history  of  the  ancient  peoples,  one  is  almost 
authorized  to  believe  that  there  were  no  peasants  among  them.  The 
historians,  who  are  guilty  of  this  forgetfulness,  who  pass  over  with 
this  indifference  the  moiety  of  the  human  kind,  should  observe,  in 
their  own  interest,  that  this  gap  makes  an  irreparable  break  in  the 
middle  of  their  books,  and  that  this  great  fact  forgotten,  must  leave 
a  multitude  of  historic  ideas  incomplete,  and  many  problems  with 
out  a  solution.  It  is  now  for  the  young  critic,  born  in  this  century, 
to  make  the  tour  through  the  historic  edifice  left  to  us  by  our 
fathers,  to  visit  its  holes  and  crevices,  and  to  at  least  repair,  if  not 
to  rebuild  it. 

This  history  of  the  peasants  among  the  ancient  peoples  is  pre 
ceded  by  another,  which  we  are  not  now  free  to  undertake,  but  of 
which  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  say  something.  This  other  his 
tory  is  that  of  the  landed  proprietors,  whose  laborers  were  the 
peasants.  The  history  of  the  landed  proprietors,  which  also  has 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  183 

not  been  written,  would  require  a  book.  It  will  therefore  be  found 
very  natural  that  we  should  say  of  it  what  it  is  impossible  for  us  to 
omit  here. 

We  believe  —  and  this  firm  belief,  which  we  announce  here^ 
will  be  discussed,  and,  we  hope,  justified  in  the  second  volume  of 
this  work  —  that  the  most  remote  historic  times  of  ancient  peoples, 
of  which  we  have  any  knowledge,  were  nevertheless,  for  them,  very 
secondary.  For  example,  we  are  convinced  that  in  Italy  before  Rom 
ulus,  and  in  Greece  before  Theseus,  there  was  a  long  historic  epoch, 
corresponding  in  its  character  to  what  the  middle  ages  were  to  us. 
The  existence  of  a  middle  age,  but  of  a.  feudal  middle  age,  in  the  his 
tory  of  ancient  Greece  and  ancient  Italy  is,  to  our  eyes,  and  in  the 
present  state  of  our  historic  studies,  a  fact  completely  demonstrated. 
The  foundation  of  Rome,  and  the  establishment  of  the  first  muni 
cipalities,  like  that  of  Ceres  in  Italy,  the  foundation  of  Athens,  and 
the  establishment  of  the  small  republics  of  Peloponnesus,  in  Greece, 
ended,  according  to  our  ideas,  that  ancient  feudality,  and  are  in 
ancient  history  what  the  enfranchisement  of  the  communes  was  in 
modern  history.  It  is  not  our  intention  to  prove  this,  in  this  chap 
ter  ;  but  we  give  some  detached  observations  on  this  general  opinion. 

The  existence  of  this  antique  middle  age  once  admitted  —  and  it 
is  for  us  completely  —  we  can,  if  we  wish,  follow  its  traces  through 
history.  For  example,  and  to  limit  ourselves  to  Italy,  a  system  of 
vassalage  and  suzerainty  was  still  completely  organized  in  all  the 
extent  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  times  of  Marius  and  Sylla.  On 
this  point  may  be  cited  among  other  testimony  the  efforts  of  Marius 
to  withdraw  himself  from  the  vassalage,  in  which  he  was,  and  his 
ancestors  always  had  been,  to  the  house  of  Herennius,  a  house  whose 
seignorial  rights  the  judges  maintained,  although  Marius  alleged 
that  having  been  elected  praetor,  that  rank  was  for  him  equivalent 
to  a  title  of  freedom  and  nobility.1 

Besides,  it  is  not  doubtful  that  the  expression  vassal  (vasattus, 
vassus,  vas,  in  the  language  of  the  jurists  of  the  middle  age)  belonged 
to  the  most  remote  Roman  legislation.  Aulus  Gellius,  who  con 
tains  on  this  point  very  precise  and  clear  documents,  asked  a  lawyer, 
in  an  interview  which  took  place,  he  says,  in  the  market-place  at 
Rome  on  a  festival  day,  what  was  the  meaning  of  some  terms  found 
1  Plutarch,  Marius,  ch.  xxii. 


1 84  HISTORY    OF    THE 

in  the  third  book  of  the  Annals  of  Ennius,  which  some  one  had  read. 
The  lawyer  excused  himself,  saying  that  he  knew  the  law  very  well, 
but  not  the  philology;  but  when  it  was  answered  that  he  ought  to 
be  competent  to  explain  these  terms,  since  trfey  were  found  in  the 
Twelve  Tables,  he  again  excused  himself,  saying  that  he  could  not, 
because  he  had  not  studied  the  laws  of  the  Aborigines  and  the 
Fauns.1 

Now  among  these  terms,  of  the  signification  of  which  the  lawyer 
acknowledged  himself  ignorant,  were  vas  and  subvas,  vassal  and 
arriere  vassal ;  and  this  primitive  legislation  of  the  Aborigines  and 
Fauns,  which  the  jurists  of  the  time  of  Aulus  Gelliushad  not  studied, 
because  it  no  longer  entered  into  the  practice  of  the  civil  law,  and 
which  they  left  as  a  curiosity  of  learning  to  the  historians  and  poets, 
(for  a  poet  explained  the  terms  which  the  lawyer  did  not  understand  ;2) 
this  legislation  of  the  Aborigines  and  Fauns  was  the  old  feudal  juris 
prudence  of  Italy.  More  than  that,  and  singular  to  have  to  say  at 
this  day!  the  expression  serf  of  the  glebe  m  so  many  words  belonged 
to  the  Roman  law,  and  is  formally  found,  as  we  will  hereafter  show, 
in  a  constitution  of  Honorius  and  Theodosius. 

Thus  ancient  Italy  was  feudal,  like  modern  Europe  from  the  fifth 
to  the  fifteenth  century. 

This  feudal  Italy  contained  seigniors,  (lords)  who  inhabited  the 
country ;  for  the  cities  only  began  to  have  importance,  when  the 
nobility  had  decayed  and  the  free  boroughs  were  formed.  These 
seigniors  had,  to  work  their  lands,  slaves,  who  later  became  serfs  of 
the  glebe,  who  still  later  became  the  peasants. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  well  to  say  here  in  a  few  words  that  the  men, 
who  in  the  ancient  Roman  legislation  bore  the  name  of  proletaries, 
proletarii,  were  precisely  these  serfs  of  the  glebe  of  primitive  feudal 
Italy.  It  results  from  the  chapter  of  Aulus  Gellius,  of  which  we 
have  just  now  spoken,  that  the  expression  proletary  had  become  very 
difficult  to  understand,  and  had  entirely  dropped  out  of  the  lan 
guage  of  the  law,  to  which  it  belonged,  toward  the  twelfth  century 
of  the  Christian  era.  The  poet,  who  undertook  to  explain  the 
terms  taken  from  the  laws  of  the  Aborigines  and  Fauns,  in  default 

1  Aul.  Gell.,  lib.  xvi.,  cap.  x.,  $  7. 

2  Turn  forte  quadam   Julium   Paulum,  poetam  memoriae  nostrae  d'octissimum 
praetereuntem    conspeximus.     Is   a  nobis  salutatus  rogatusque  uti    de  sententia 
deque  ratione  istius  vocabuli  nos  doceret.  (Aul.  Gell.  xvi.  ;  cap.  x.,  \  9,  10.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  185 

| 

of  the  lawyer,  who  never  had  studied  them,  said  that  in  the  ancient 
jurisprudence,  the  proletaries  were  the  serfs,  who  came  immediately 
above  the  capite  censi?  Now  the  capite  censi  were  properly  serfs 
of  the  body,  paying,  according  to  the  ancient  custom  of  Italy,  three 
hundred  and  seventy-five  pennies  tax ;  the  proletaries  paid  fifteen 
hundred.2  We  see  by  this  that  the  Saint  Simonian  school,  which  has 
latterly  put  in  circulation  the  word  proletary  as  signifying  a  free  man 
possessing  nothing,  and  which  has  undertaken  to  base  the  sense,  which 
it  gives,  upon  Roman  history,  was  not  very  sure  of  the  erudition, 
which  it  displays  on  this  point. 

This  being  well  understood  and  established,  viz.,  that  the  country 
of  ancient  Italy  was  inhabited  by  rich  and  lordly  families,  and  that 
there  were  great  domains  belonging  to  the  temples,  of  which  the 
pagan  clergy,  as  proprietors,  superintended  the  culture  and  received' 
the  revenues,  we  may  ask  what  became  of  the  numberless  slaves, 
laborers,  vintners,  gardeners,  shepherds,  who  cultivated  the  lands 
and  tended  the  flocks,  and  of  whom  a  certain  number  from  time  to 
time  attained  to  freedom.  The  masters  always,  for  a  thousand  differ 
ent  causes,  set  free  some  of  their  slaves  in  the  cities :  why  should  they 
not  have  set  free  some  in  the  country  ?  Besides,  the  fact  of  a  rural 
population,  attached  only  to  the  soil,  but  possessing  a  property  of 
their  own,  sometimes  even  of  a  rural  population  entirely  free,  is  so 
evident  in  ancient  history  that  we  will  presently  take  a  rapid  notice 
of  them. 

We  may  then  ask,  we  say,  what  became  of  the  serfs  and  freed- 
men  of  the  country  ?  Did  they  remain  isolated  ?  Did  they  live  in 
communities  ?  Did  they  possess  an  administration  of  their  own  ? 
Did  they  have  judges  taken  from  among  themselves  in  their  disputes  ? 

And  what  we  have  said  of  the  rural  serfs  and  freedmen  of  Italy, 
we  may  equally  say  of  the  serfs  and  freedmen  of  France.  What 
became  of  those  so  numerous  serfs,  who  were  primitively  slaves, 
whether  of  lords,  or  of  monasteries,  or  of  chapters,  and  who,  not 
withstanding  their  number,  being  separated  in  little  groups  or  scat 
tered  in  hamlets  through  the  country,  were  never  expressly  erected 

1  Extremus  autem  census  capite  censorum  sens  fuit  trecenti  septuaginta  quinque. 
(Aul.  Cell.,  lib.  xvi.,  cap.  x.,  f  10.) 

2  Qui  in  plebe  Romana  tenuissimi  pauperrimique  erant,  neque  amplius  quam 
mille  quingentum  sens  in  censum  defuebant,  proletarii  appdlati  sunt.  (Aul.  Gell., 
lib.  xvi.,  cap.  x.,  §  10.) 

13 


l86  HISTORY    OF    THE 

into  communes?  Nearly  all  the  agricultural  population  of  the 
kingdom,  and  a  considerable  multitude  of  burghs  and  villages, 
whose  inhabitants,  first  slaves,  then  serfs,  then  freedmen,  were  finally 
brought  into  the  common  mass  of  the  tiers-Hat,  have  never  passed 
through  the  form  of  municipal  association.  Now,  what  was  the 
domestic  and  civil  state  of  these  rural  populations?  Who  took 
care  of  them  ?  Who  judged  them  ?  All  these  are  difficult  but  very 
important  questions,  on  the  solution  of  which  must  evidently  depend 
the  general  and  superior  signification  of  the  history  of  the  peoples 
of  the  West. 

It  appears  certain,  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to  have  certainty  and 
precision  in  a  study  attempted  for  the  first  time,  on  facts  so  distant 
and  obscure,  that  the  slave  population  of  the  country,  as  they  were 
set  free,  resolved  themselves  into  little  villages,  little  burghs,  and 
hamlets.  It  should  be  remarked  that  these  primitive  little  villages 
became  the  germ  of  communes  that  were  formed  later,  when  they 
had  acquired  some  development.  Besides,  these  villages  always 
had  for  their  centre  a  castle  or  a  temple  in  ancient  times ;  a  castle, 
a  church,  or  a  monastery,  in  the  middle  ages.  The  castle  or  the 
temple,  the  church  or  the  monastery  were  the  safeguard,  to  which 
the  serfs,  feeble,  naked,  disarmed,  came  for  shelter.  It  was  thus, 
in  every  country,  in  all  times,  the  boroughs  and  cities  commenced. 
This  perhaps  would  require  some  examples,  which  it  would  be  easy 
to  give ;  but  we  limit  ourselves  to  Rome,  commenced  by  a  castle 
on  Mount  Palatine,  and  Athens,  by  a  castle  on  the  Acropolis.  We 
must  except  from  this  general  rule  only  those  cities,  which  have  been 
founded  all  at  once  by  colonies  or  by  peoples  emigrating  ;  but  it 
must  not  be  lost  sight  of  that  we  speak  of  cities  and  boroughs 
founded  by  nascent,  not  by  old,  populations. 

These  open  boroughs,  having  a  castle  in  the  centre,  and  formed 
by  the  accumulated  houses  of  the  serfs  of  the  seignior,  were  frequent 
in  primitive  Italy.  Plutarch  testifies  in  the  Life  of  Romulus  that  the 
ancient  Sabines  lived  thus.  The  Cisalpine  Gauls,  according  to 
Polybius,  and  the  ^Etolians,  according  to  Thucydides,  also  led  this 
feudal  life.  There  still  remained  in  Greece  some  of  these  burghs' in 
the  time  of  Pericles;  and  Thucydides  mentions  four  or  five;  but 
the  greater  part  of  them  had  at  that  epoch  acquired  sufficient  im 
portance,  either  by  the  number  of  their  inhabitants  or  by  the  extent 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  l8? 

of  the  franchises  which  they  enjoyed,  to  be  erected  into  communes; 
and,  besides,  some  of  them  were  surrounded  with  walls  and  changed 
into  strongholds  by  the  Athenians  or  the  Lacedemonians,  during 
the  Peloponnesian  war.1 

In  the  middle  ages,  open  burghs,  having  a  castle  or  a  monastery  in 
the  centre,  were  innumerable.  Although  the  greater  part  of  them 
have  since  become  cities,  it  is  very  easy  to  recognize  some  of  them 
at  this  day  by  their  names,  in  which  is  mentioned  the  castle,  to 
which  they  owe  their  origin,  as  Chateau-roux,  Chateau-Meillan, 
Chateau-neuf,  Castelnau,  and  the  other  cities,  in  whose  names  ap 
pear  the  wordferre',  which  also  signifies  strong  castle;  firmitas,  as 
the  ancient  charters  express  it. 

The  slave  population  of  the  country,  we  say,  flowed  into  these 
thousand  small  burghs,  of  which  some  became  cities  and  others 
have  disappeared.  In  fact,  it  must  be  remarked  that  isolated  houses 
in  the  country  belong  to  modern  times  ;  in  primitive  times,  we  have 
shown,  there  were  none  isolated  but  the  castles. 

At  the  time  when  these  burghs  were  formed,  they  were  inhabited 
by  populations  in  a  state  of  slavery.  Italy  was  still  covered  with 
them  toward  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era.  For  example, 
there  were  few  grand  Roman  lords,  who  did  not  possess  many  vil 
lages,  and  they  were  masters  of  them  as  absolutely  as  the  French 
lords  of  the  middle  ages  were  of  theirs. 

The  lords,  who  owned  these  villages,  had  them  governed  by  of 
ficers,  whose  functions  nearly  corresponded  to  those  of  our  baillis. 
Suetonius  expressly  relates  that  the  Emperor  Claudius  had  thus  on  his 
domains  officers,  who  administered  justice  to  his  vassals,  not  in  his 
name  as  emperor,  but  in  his  name  of  seignior.2  There  were  laws 
of  Gordian,  Diocletian,  Maximian,  Julian,  and  Zeno,3  which  insti 
tuted  in  the  empire  judges  called  pedanes,  (a)  who  by  the  nature  of 
their  attributes,  were  exactly  what  in  the  fourteenth  century  were  our 
village  judges,  who  were  called,  says  Loyseau,  juges  sous  /' 'orme, 
judges  under  the  elm.4  Finally,  a  constitution  of  Justinian,  of  the 

1  See  the  speech  addressed  to  an  assembly  of  the  people,  at  the  commencement 
of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  by  Pericles,  as  to  the  disposition  of  the  Athenians 
and  Lacedemonians  to  fortify  different  points  of  territory.  (Thucydides,  lib.  i., 
cap.  cxlii.*)  2  Suetonius,  Tib.  Claud.  Coesar,  ch.  xiii. 

3  Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  iii.,  title  iii.,  leg.  2,  4,  5. 

(a)  So  called  because  they  had  no  bench,  but  judged  cases  standing. 

*  Loyseau,  on  the  abuses  of  village  judges,  p.  21. 


188  HISTORY    OF    THE 

year  539,  established,  or  rather  regulated,  the  jurisdiction  of  lords 
over  their  vassals,  or  of  masters  over  their  laborers,  as  in  the  Latin 
tongue  it  is  expressed.1  Moreover,  we  should  never  hesitate  to 
employ,  on  occasion,  the  terms  of  heraldry  in  treating  Roman  his 
tory.  We  will  show  summarily  hereafter  that  the  titles  of  prince, 
duke,  marquis,  count,  baron,  chevalier,  belong  to  the  Latin  tongue. 

It  is  easily  understood  that  it  is  difficult  to  say  with  precision  up 
to  what  time  the  villages  of  Italy  remained  thus  the  property  of  the 
lords.  There  were  some  still  in  the  fifth  century.  We  know  that 
moral  revolutions  never  have  any  precise  date.  Otherwise,  the  laws 
of  Theodosius,  Arcadius,  Valentinian  II.,  Diocletian,  Leo,  and  An- 
themius  contained  most  precise  indications  as  to  the  state  of  the 
peasants  of  the  empire. 

The  most  precise  idea,  that  can  be  formed  of  the  peasants  of  antiqui 
ty,  is  this :  they  were  slave  agriculturists,  slave  laborers,  slave  vintners, 
slave  shepherds,  to  whom  their  masters,  in  pursuance  of  a  new  system 
of  management  applied  to  their  property,  no  longer  gave  lodging, 
clothes,  and  food,  as  in  the  past;  but  accorded  to  them  the  faculty 
of  managing,  at  their  pleasure,  but  under  their  responsibility,  either 
the  cultivation  of  a  certain  extent  of  land  or  the  care  of  the  flocks, 
on  condition  of  paying  annually  to  the  master  a  certain  portion  of 
the  revenues  of  the  flocks  or  land,  and  to  keep  the  rest  for  them 
selves,  as  an  equivalent  for  food,  clothing,  and  lodging,  which  they 
no  longer  received. 

This  general  idea,  which  we  express,  as  to  the  peasants  of  antiquity, 
results  from  a  comparative  study  of  the  mode  of  emancipation  of 
agricultural  slaves  in  antiquity  and  in  the  middle  ages ;  and,  as 
regards  the  Roman  Empire,  it  rests  on  the  formal  text  of  a  law  of 
the  Emperor  Anastasius,  which  dates  from  the  first  years  of  the  sixth 
century.2  This  law,  as  may  be  seen,  is  important  on  three  points : 
first,  in  that  it  announces  the  fact  generally ;  second,  in  that  it 
shows  that  it  was  ordinarily  after  thirty  years  of  trial  that  the 
masters  intrusted  the  cultivation  of  the  lands  to  the  discretion  of 

1  Si  vero  forsan  cum  instituerint  auditores  litis,  aut  agricolarum  domini,  qui  a 
nobis  sunt  judices  statuti.  (Anth.  Coll.  vi.,  tit.  ix.,  novel.  Ixxx.,  cap.  iii.) 

a  Agricolarum  alii  quidem  sunt  adscriptitii,  et  eorum  peculia  dominjs  compe 
tent  ;  alii  vero  tempore  annorum  triginta  coloni  fiunt,  liberati  manentes  cum  rebus 
suis ;  et  ii  etiam  coguntur  terram  colere  et  canonem  prestare.  Hoc  et  doiniao  et 
agricolis  utilius  est.  (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xlvii.,  leg.  18.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  189 

their  slaves ;  third,  and  finally,  in  that  it  says  that  this  new  mode 
of  cultivation  was  at  the  same  time  more  advantageous  to  the  slaves 
and  to  the  masters. 

This  law,  well  interpreted,  explains  with  admirable  simplicity 
and  rigor  the  nature  and  condition  of  the  peasants  in  the  Roman 
Empire. 

The  masters,  we  have  said,  in  place  of  lodging,  feeding,  and 
clothing  their  slaves,  as  they  had  done  in  more  remote  times,  found 
it  more  convenient  to  get  rid  of  this  care,  and  to  leave  them  free  to 
cultivate  the  lands  at  their  discretion,  and  to  give  to  them  from  the 
fruits  of  their  labor  all  beyond  a  certain  fixed  rent,  called  canon, 
that  is  to  say,  custom. 

It  is  very  evident  that  the  masters  did  not  grant  this  favor,  for  it 
was  a  very  great  one,  to  all  their  slaves,  but  only  to  those,  who 
evinced  regular  habits  of  intelligence  and  industry,  and  in  whose 
hands  they  could  be  certain  that  the  lands  would  not  lie  fallow. 
Hence  we  have  two  species  of  peasants ;  those,  who  were  still  under 
the  hand  of  the  master,  and  those,  who  had  deserved  to  be  intrusted 
with  the  cultivation  of  the  lands  and  the  care  of  the  flocks.  The 
former  were  called  coloni  adscriptitii,  and  were  veritable  slaves ;  the 
latter  were  called  coloni  originarii,  inquilini,  censitt,  or  simply 
coloni,  and  were  what  serfs  of  the  glebe  were  in  the  middle  ages. 

The  coloni  adscriptitii  were,  we  say,  veritable  slaves ; *  the  master 
could  sell  them  at  his  pleasure.  The  coloni  censiti,  originarii,  or 
inquilini  were  no  longer  slaves ;  all  personal  action  of  the  master 
over  them  had  ceased,  and  he  could  no  longer  sell  them  except  by 
selling  the  lands  to  which  they  were  attached.2 

This  latter  species  of  peasants,  after  thirty  years'  evidence  of  an 
active  and  regular  life,  became  then,  by  the  terms  of  the  law  of 
Anastasius,  entirely  free  in  their  persons.  Nevertheless,  even  in 
this  freedom,  which  they  had  acquired,  they  were  bound  to  work  the 
grant,  the^^/,  and  to  pay  rent,  cogentur  terram  colere  et  canonem 
prestare.  A  law  of  Theodosius  and  Valentinian  calls  them  serfs  of 

1  Quse  enim  differentia  inter  servos  et  adscriptitios  intelligatur,  cum  uterque  in 
domini  sui  positus  sit  potestate.   (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xlvii.,  leg.  21.) 

2  Quemadmodum  originarios  absque  terra  ita  rusticos  censitosque  servos  vendi 
omnifariam  non  licebit.    (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xlvii,,  leg.  7.)     Si  quis  prsedium 
vendere  voluerit  vel  donare ;  retinere  sibi  transferendos  ad  alia  loca  colonos  pri- 
vata  pactione  non  possit.   (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xlii.,  leg.  2.) 


HISTORY    OF    THE 

the  land,1  and  a  law  of  Honorius  and  Theodosius  says  that  they  were 
attached  to  the  glebe?  These  laws  consider  slavery  as  if  it  ought  to 
be  eternal  ;3  but  it  results  from  the  terms  of  a^constitution  of  Theo 
dosius  and  Valentinian  that  there  were  degrees  in  this  slavery ;  for 
example,  there  might  be  exemptions  from  the  poll  tax,  which  the 
coloni  censiti,  inscribed  in  the  public  register  of  rents,4  generally 
paid.5 

The  law  of  Anastasius  teaches  us,  we  have  seen,  that  the  serfs  of 
the  glebe  paid  annually  to  the  master  a  part  of  the  revenues  to  rep 
resent  his  right  of  property,  and  kept  the  other  part  to  represent 
their  food,  lodging,  clothing,  and  profits.  All  this  is  elsewhere 
found  formally  expressed  in  a  constitution  of  Valentinian  and 
Valens.6  Another  constitution  of  the  same  emperors  provides  that 
this  rent  should  be  paid  in  kind,  unless  the  custom  of  the  land 
otherwise  prescribed.7 

Once  free  in  their  persons  by  the  expiration  of  thirty  years,  the 
serfs  of  the  glebe,  provided  they  were  faithful  to  the  terms  of  their 
feudal  compact,  acquired  a  moral  value  and  a  civil  capacity  in  -the 
sphere  of  their  own  interests.  Public  officers  could  not,  under  heavy 
penalties,  impose  upon  them  menial  labor,8  and  if  their  lord  exacted 

1  Servi  tamen  terras  ipsius,  cui  nati  sunt,  existhnentur.    (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  xi., 
tit.  li.,  leg.  I.) 

2  Quos  ita  glebis  inhcerere  praecipimus,  ut  ne  puncto  quidem  temporis  debeant 
amoved.   (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xlvii.,  leg.  15.) 

8  Cum  . . .  lex  .  . .  colonos  quodam  seternitatis  jure  detineat,  ita  ut  illis  non  liceat 
ex  his  locis, quorum  fructu  relevantur,  abscedere.  (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  xi.,tit.  l.,leg.  I.) 

4  Qui    in  suis   conscripti  locis  proprio  nomine  libris    censualibus  detinentur. 
(Cod.  Just.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xlvii.,  leg.  4.) 

5  Sublato   in   perpetuum  humanse  capitationis  censu,  jugatio   tantum  terrena 
solvatur.     Et  ne  forte  colonis  tributariae  sortis  nexibus  absolutis,  vagandi,  et  quo 
libuerit  recedendi  facultas  permissa  videatur,  ipsi  quidem  originario  jure  tene- 
antur.  (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  li.,  leg.  I.) 

6  Caeterum  si  profugi,  quod  alieni  esse  viderentur,  quasi  sui  arbitrii  ac  liberi  apud 
aliquem  se  collocaverunt,  aut  excolenles  terras  partem  fructuum  pro  solo  debitam 
do  minis   prtestiterunt,     ccetera  proprio   peculio    reservantes,    vet    quibuscumque 
operis  impensis  mercedam  placitam  consecuti  sunt.  (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xlvii., 
leg.  8.) 

7  Domini  praediorum  id,  quod  terra  pnestat,  accipiant,  pecuniam  non  requirant, 
.  .  .  nisi  consuetudo  praedii  hoc  exigat.  (Idem,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xlvii.,  leg.  5.) 

8  Sd  quis  eorum,  qui  .  .  .  sub  quocumque  pretextu  publici  muneris  possunt  esse 
terribiles  .  .  .  rusticano  cuipiam  necessitatem  obsequii  .  .  .  imponant,  aut  servum 
ejus,  vel  forte  bovem  in  usus  proprios  .  .  .  converterint,  .  .  .  ablatis  omnibus  facul- 
tatibus,  perpetuo  subjugantur  exilio.  (Idem,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  liv.,  leg.  2.} 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  IQT 

a  greater  rent  than  was  the  custom  of  the  domain,  the  serfs  could 
reclaim  it  before  the  judge.1 

These  two,  or  rather  three,  species  of  peasants,  those  who  were 
purely  slaves,  those  who  were  serfs  paying  a  poll  tax,  and  those  who 
were  serfs  paying  only  rent,  habitually  collected  in  little  villages, 
and  bore  the  name  villagers,  vicani.  It  appears  that  toward  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century  these  villagers  were  already  preparing 
the  way  for  a  political  result,  which  was  completed  in  the  compul 
sory  feudality  of  the  middle  ages,  by  placing  themselves  under  the 
safeguard  of  a  powerful  lord,  who  granted  them  his  protection  in 
consideration  of  a  tribute  paid  to  him,  that  is  to  say,  by  creating  a 
voluntary  feudality.2  The  law  of  Leo  and  Anthemius,  which  signal 
izes  this  fact,  forbids  it  under  severe  penalty ;  but  it  prevailed  later, 
as  we  know,  and  gave  birth  to  the  whole  system  of  feudal  depend 
encies.3 

We  thus  come  to  see  that  ancient  Italy  was  fundamentally  feudal : 
we  will  show  that  it  was  feudal  even  in  its  language.  With  very 
little  more  trouble  we  could  show  that  feudality  was  Greek,  next 
that  it  was  Jewish,  and  finally  that  it  is,  like  the  commune  in  another 
order  of  facts,  a  phase  of  the  history  of  humanity. 

Without  wishing  to  set  forth  here  all  the  facts  and  ideas,  by  which 
we  will  establish,  in  the  volume  on  the  history  of  the  nobility,  that 
the  nomenclature  of  the  nobility  of  the  middle  ages  belonged  to  the 
ceremonial  of  the  Roman  Empire,  we  can  nevertheless  show,  as  we 
have  announced,  that  the  titles  gentleman,  chevalier,  baron,  count, 
marquis,  duke,  and  prince,  are  taken  from  the  Latin  language. 

Gentleman  {gentilhomme}  is  the  literal  translation  of  gentis  homo, 
and  designates  exactly  the  same  thing,  viz.,  a  man  of  free  race, 
one  who  counts  no  freedman  among  his  ancestors.  This  is  the 
sense  given  to  gentilhomme  and  gentis  homo  by  the  French  and 
Latin  jurists.*  Moreover,  if  we  consider  the  word  gentilhomme  at 
the  moment  when  it  first  entered  into  the  French  language,  we  again 

1  Quisquis  colonus  plus  a  domino  exigitur  quam  ante  consueverat  .  .  .  adeat 
judicem,  cujus  primum  poterit  habere  presentiam.  (Idem.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xlix.,  leg.  I.) 

2  Ne  quis  vicanis  patrocinium  polliceatur  vel  agricolas  in  clientelam  suscipiat, 
redituum,  alteriusve  lucri  promissione  recepta.   (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  liii.,  leg.  I.) 

8  Freeterea  ut  vicani,  si  servi  sint,  dominis  castigati  reddantur ;  si  liberi  xx.  libris 
multentur.  (Idem,  leg.  2.} 

4  Servi  genus  vel  gentem  non  habent ;  liberti,  vel   ab  iis  orti,  gentem  non 


192  HISTORY    OF    THE 

find  its  form  purely  Latin  ;  for  example,  we  read  gentis  hons  in  the 
romance  of  Bertha  with  the  Big  Feet,  which  was  of  the  year  1240, 
or  very  nearly;1  and  gentifhomo  in  a  charter  of  1228,  cited  by 
Adrian  de  Valois  in  his  Notice  of  the  Gauls.2 

Chevalier  is  the  translation  into  the  Celtic  idiom  of  the  Latin 
eques.  Already  in  the  time  of  Nero  the  barbarian  word  caballus, 
to  signify  horse,  had  entered  into  the  Latin  language.  It  is  found 
in  Perseus.3  In  following  the  charters  of  the  middle  age,  we  trace 
all  the  successive  transformations,  by  which  caballus  became  cheval? 
and  the  grade  of  nobility,  designated  by  eques  among  the  Romans, 
very  nearly  corresponds  to  the  grade  of  nobility  designated  by  che 
valier  in  France. 

We  find  baron  in  so  many  letters  in  the  Commentaries  of  Caesar, 
or  rather  in  the  continuation  of  the  Commentaries  by  Hirtius,  the 
friend  and  colleague  of  Caesar  ; 5  and  again  baron  is  expressly  given 
in  four  places  by  Cicero ;  first,  in  his  book  De  Finibus  ; 6  secondly, 
on  his  treatise  on  Divination  ; 7  third,  in  his  letters  to  Atticus  ; 8 
fourth  in  his  letters  to  his  friends.9  Finally,  we  find  baron  in  the 
Satires  of  Perseus.10 

It  must  be  admitted  that  baron,  in  the  authors  we  have  just  men 
tioned,  does  not  signify  precisely  what  it  signifies  in  the  history  of 

habent ;  nam  gentem  habent  soli,  quorum  parentes  nemini  servierunt.  (Jacob. 
Cujas,  in  lib.  iii.,  quaest.  Papinian.  Comment,  ad  leg.  I,  de  probat.) 

1  Moult  ot  el  roy  Pepins  tres  gentis  hons.  (Le  Romans  de  Berte  aus  grans 
pies,  verset.  cxxxix.) 

2  Hadrian.  Vales.  Notit.  Gall.,  p.  333. 

3  Nee  fonte  labra  prolui  caballino.   (Perseus,  Prolog.,  v.  I.) 

4  Caballus  is  found  in  most  of  the  laws  of  the  seventh  century.  (Lex  Salic.,  tit. 
xxvii.,  $  9;)  in  a  record  of  1275  we  read  cavalcata,  (Ordon.  du  Louv.,  t.  iii.,  p. 
58;)  in  a  charter  of  1224  we  read  chevalcata  (Carpent.  Gloss.  Med.  /Ev.;)  finally, 
cheval  is  found  in  Villehardouin. 

5  Concurritur  ad  Cassium  defendendum :  semper  enim  barones  compluresque 
evocatos  cum  telis  secum  habere  consueverat.     (A.  Hirtii  de  Bell.   Alexand., 
cap.  liii.) 

6  Haec   cum  loqueris,  nos  barones  stupemus  :    tu  videlicet  tecum    ipse    rides. 
(Cicero  de  Fin.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xxiii.,  $  77.) 

7  Huic  quidem  Antipho,  Baro,  inquit,  te  victum  esse  non  vides  ?  (Cicero  de 
Qivinat.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  Ixx.,  $  14.4. ) 

•Apud  patronem  et  reliquos  barones  te  in  maxima  gratia  posui,  et  hercule 
merito  tuo  feci.  (Cicero,  Epis.  ad  Atticmn,  lib.  v.,  epis.  xi.,  \  5.) 

9  Ille  baro  te  putabat  quoesiturum,  unum  ccelum  esset,  an  innumerabilia.  (Cicero, 
epist.  ad  divers.,  lib.  ix.,  epist.  xxvi.) 

10  ...  Eheu  ! 

Baro,  regustatum  digito  terebrare  salinum 
Contentus  perages,  si  vivere  cum  Jove  tendis. 

(Pers.  Satyr.,  v.  1 37-1 39.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  IQ3 

the  French  nobility  ;  but  we  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  its  mod 
ern  is  derived  from  its  ancient  sense.  In  Perseus,  and  in  some  pas 
sages  of  Cicero,  and  notably  in  the  two  first  and  in  the  fourth  of 
the  passages  quoted,  it  appears  to  signify  something  like  rustic ; 
but  in  the  third,  taken  from  his  letters  to  Atticus,  baron  has  evi 
dently  an  honorable  signification.  In  the  Commentaries  of  Caesar, 
baron  designates  a  certain  kind  of  soldier.  As  the  word  baron  is 
Celtic,  we  are  authorized  to  believe  that  it  was  applied  to  the  Gauls 
in  the  Roman  service.  The  passage  from  Hirtius  completely  justi 
fies  this  opinion.  Once  admitted  that  the  barons  were  barbarian 
soldiers,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  how  baron  might  equally  mean  rustic. 
In  the  middle  ages,  before  the  noble  hierarchy  was  completely 
organized,  baron  signified  simply  seignior  or  gentleman.  We  find 
the  epithet  baron  given  to  St.  Peter  in  two  passages  of  the  Romance 
of  Bertha  ; 1  and  we  read  in  a  third  place  that  King  Pepin  was  "  tre*s 
gentis  hons  et  ber."  2  Besides,  it  results  from  a  great  number  of 
texts  that  ber  and  baron  meant  the  same  thing  in  the  middle  ages. 
As  to  the  etymological  meaning  of  the  word,  the  glossarists  pretend 
that  baron  or  ber  signified  a  brave  man,  vtr.3 

Count  is  the  translation  of  comes.  Many  witnesses  establish  that 
the  eminent  persons  of  the  Roman  nobility  had  always  around  them 
men,  who  were  attached  to  them  by  some  bond  little  known,  and 
who  were  called  counts,  comites.  Cicero  speaks  of  his  counts  in  a 
letter  to  Atticus;*  he  also  mentions  the  counts  of  Verres.5  Sueto 
nius,  in  his  Life  of  Claudius,  speaks  of  the  counts,  who  followed  the 
young  Roman  gentlemen  to  the  schools  of  rhetoric.6  In  the  Life 
of  Caesar  he  also  mentions  the  counts  of  the  magistrates,  and  what 
he  says  of  them  necessarily  attributes  to  them  public  functions,  by 
virtue  of  their  title  of  count,  since  in  determining  the  persons,  who 
had  authority  to  be  absent  from  Rome  for  three  years,  Caesar  ex- 

1 A  Dieu  s'est  commande'e  (Berte)  et  au  baron  St.  Pierre.  (Le  Roman  de  Berte 
aus  grans  pies.  (Vers.  xl. ;  ibid.,  vers.  cxxx.) 

2  Moult  o't  el  roy  Pepin  tres  gentis  hons  et  ber.  (Ibid.,  vers.  cxxxix.) 

3  Porro  quod  in  quibusdam  glossariis  exponerentur  Baro,  d*<»)p  et  vir  fortis  in 
laboribus,  putarunt  quidam  baronem  vocabulum  et  dignitatis  et  honoris.   (Forcel. 
Lexic.,  verb.  Barb.) 

4  Hominem  certum  misi  de  comitibus  meis.  (Cicero  ad  Atticum,  lib.  viii.  i.) 

5  Coraites  illi  tui  dilecti  manus  erant  tiue.   (Cic.  in  Verrem.,  Act.  ii.,  lib.  ii., 
cap.  10.) 

6  Vix  remisit  (Claudius)  ne  cuivis  comiti  calamarioe  adimerentur.   (Suet.,  Tib. 
Claud.  Caesar,  cap.  xxxvi.) 


HISTORY    OF    THE 

cepts  only  the  military  and  the  counts  of  the  magistrates.1  In  the 
Life  of  Adrian,  Spartian  speaks  of  the  counts  of  the  emperor,  and 
distinguishes  them  from  his  friends.2  Moreover,  it  is  certain  that 
comes,  as  employed  in  these  passages  of  the  different  authors  we 
have  mentioned,  does  not  simply  mean  companion.  This  word  had 
already  received,  from  the  usages  of  society  and  the  language  of 
ceremony,  a  special  signification  ;  for  the  Greeks,  as  we  will  show 
presently,  translated  this  word  in  the  cases  cited  by  xo^j,  which  was 
a  barbarism ;  when,  moreover,  they  had  the  word  axoxovroj,  if  comes 
had  meant  companion. 

When  the  emperors  had  abolished  the  last  remnants  of  the  re 
publican  form  of  the  Roman  government  and  become  absolute  in 
fact  and  by  law,  they  made  their  counts  so  many  public  officers, 
without  ceasing  by  that  to  keep  them  attached  to  their  persons.  In 
absolute  governments,  the  magistrates  are  always  the  familiars  of  the 
prince.  Thus  the  grand  chamberlain  and  the  grand  pantler  of  the 
kings  of  France  were  at  the  same  time  officers  clothed  with  immense 
powers. 

It  was  about  the  time  of  Constantine  that  the  counts  of  the  em 
peror  became  public  officers.  The  first  count  of  the  sacred  lar 
gesses  was  of  the  year  340,  under  Constant ; 3  the  first  count  of  the 
privy  purse  was  of  the  year  342  ; 4  the  first  count  of  the  domestics 
was  of  the  year  367  ;5  the  first  count  of  the  Orient  is  of  the  year 
342  ;6  the  first  count  of  Egypt  was  of  the  year  391 ; 7  the  first  count 
of  Macedonia  in  327; 8  the  first  count  of  Africa  in  326  ;9  the  first 
count  of  Spain  in  31 7  ;10  the  first  count  of  the  Gauls  in  367. n  The 
counts  mentioned  are  the  most  ancient  whose  names  are  known ;  but 
nothing  authorizes  us  to  believe  that  they  were  the  first  that  existed 
with  like  functions. 

The  title  of  count  was  common  to  the  Empires  of  the  East  and 

\ 

1  Sanxit  (Cresar)  neu  quis  senatoris  filius,  nisi  contubernalis  aut  comes  magis- 
tratuum,  peregre  proficisceretur.   (Suet.  Tranquil.,  C.  Jul.  Caesar,  cap.  xliii.) 

2  Cum  judicaret,  in   concilio  habuit  non  amicos  suos  et  comites  tantum,  sed 
jurisconsultos.  (Spartian.  in  Hadrian.) 

3  Zosim.  Hist.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  42.  *  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  x.,  tit.  x.,  leg.  6. 
5Ammian.  Marcel.  Hist.,  lib.  xxvii.,  cap.  8. 

6  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xii.,  tit.  i.,  leg.  33. 

7  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xvi.,  tit.  x.,  leg.  1 1. 

8  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  2.       9Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xii.,  tit.  i.,  leg.  15. 
10  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xii.,  tit.  i.,  leg.  4.     "  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  vii.,  tit.  i.,  leg.  9. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  IQ5 

of  the  West.  We  have  said  that  the  Greek  writers  called  them 
xoprftft.  The  word  is  found  in  a  great  number  of  authors  ;  among 
others,  in  Constantine  Porphyrogenitus,1  in  Leo,2  and  in  Pachy- 
merus.3 

In  France,  under  the  kings  of  the  first  race,  there  were  magis 
trates  representing  the  government  in  the  provinces,  who  bore  the 
title  of  count.4 

The  Latin  expression  signifying  marquis  was  comes  limitis,  count 
of  the  frontiers.  The  word  limes  was  rendered  in  the  Celtic  lan 
guage  by  marca,  whence  was  first  derived  the  false  Latin  word  mar- 
chio,  signifying  marquis,  and  thence  was  afterward  derived  the 
French  word  mar  chef  signify  ing  frontier.  This  is  expressly  shown 
in  a  letter  of  Pope  John  VIII.,  written  between  the  years  872  and 
882,  which  were  the  two  limits  of  his  pontificate.6  Moreover,  the 
counts  of  the  frontiers  are  named  in  a  law  of  Valentinian  and  of 
Valens  of  the  year  367,  and  in  a  law  of  Honorius  and  Theodosius 
of  the  year  417.* 

The  title  of  duke  is  also  Roman,  and  comes  from  dux.  Before 
passing  into  the  language  of  ceremony,  dux  meant  general.  The 
word  had,  however,  a  meaning  sufficiently  precise ;  for  example, 
dux  was  next  below  imperator.  Pompey  received  the  title  of  im- 
perator  after  having  long  commanded  the  Roman  armies,  and  Me- 
tellus  after  a  victory  gained  in  Portugal  over  the  army  of  Sertorius.8 
Cicero  very  clearly  distinguishes  these  two  titles.9  Phaedrus  gives 
to  the  Emperor  Tiberius  the  title  of  dux.10  In  the  fourth  century 

1  Const.  Porphyrog.,  lib.  i.   de  them.,  cap.  I. 

2 Leo  in  tact.,  cap.  iii.,  §  10.  3Pachymer.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  n. 

4 Si  quis  judicem  fiscalem,  quern  comitem  vocant,  interfecerint.  (Lex  ripuar., 
tit.  Iv.) 

5  Si  quis.  alterum  ligat  et  foris  marcha  eum  vendiderit.  (Lex  Allaman.,  tit. 
xxxiv.) 

6Marca  dicitur  comitatus  terra?  alicujus,  unde  ipse  comes  marchio  dicitur.  (Joan. 
Pap.  VIII.,  epist.  ii.) 

7  Comites  . . .  quibus  Rheni  est  mandata  custodia.   (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  vii.,  tit.  i., 
leg.  9.) 

Lege  dudum  latu,  quse  licentiam  exigendi .  .  .  comitibus  inferioribus  denegavit, 
duci  limitis  Eufratensis.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  viii.,  tit.  xi.,  leg.  2.) 

8  Plutarch,  Sertorius,  ch.  xxii. 

9  M.  Attilius  Regulus,  quum  consul  iterum  in  Africa  ex  insidiis  captus  est,  duce 
Xantipo  Lacedaemonio,  imperatore  autem  patre  Hannibalis,  Hamilcare.  (Cicero 
de  Off.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xxvi.) 

10  Turn  sic  jocata  est  tanti  majestas  ducis.   (Phoed.  Fabul.,  lib.  ii.,  fabula  v.) 


196  HISTORY    OF    THE 

the  dukes  are  found  among  the  officers  of  the  emperors,  and  in 
the  hierarchy  next  below  the  counts,1  The  first  Duke  of  Egypt  was 
of  the  year  364,  under  Valens.2  There  wgs  a  Duke  of  Mesopo 
tamia  in  349. 3  A  law  of  Valentinian,  of  the  year  367,  mentions 
the  dukes,  who  were  in  Gaul  and  who  guarded  the  passages  of  the 
Rhine.*  We  find  in  Cassiodorus  the  terms,  in  which  the  investiture 
of  the  dukes  was  made  by  the  emperors.5 

As  for  the  title  of  prince,  we  have  already  shown  in  the  ninth  chap 
ter  that  it  corresponds  to  the  character  expressed  by  the  word  rex. 

It  results  from  this  rapid  glance  at  the  origin  of  the  feudal  titles 
of  the  middle  ages,  that  their  roots  extend  far  into  Roman  history. 
As  we  have  said,  we  do  not  wish  to  conclude  from  that,  that  they  had 
in  the  Latin  of  the  age  of  Augustus  exactly  the  same  meaning  as  with 
us,  but  only  that  our  feudalism  was  not  an  isolated  fact  in  the  history 
of  the  West ;  that  it  was  immediately  preceded  by  the  feudalism  of 
ancient  Italy,  a  feudalism  identical  in  substance  and  like  enough  in 
form  to  have  given  to  ours  some  of  the  principal  terms  of  the  heraldic 
vocabulary. 

Another  order  of  facts,  which  serve  to  prove  the  state  of  feudal 
subjection  of  ancient  Italy,  is  the  fairs,  which  the  seigniors  had  the 
right  of  establishing  in  the  villages ;  which  proves  that  these  villages 
belonged  to  them.  In  the  second  Philippic,  Cicero  reproaches 
Anthony  with  having  defrauded  the  state  of  its  rights  by  establishing, 
on  his  own  private  authority,  fairs  in  the  villages  situated  on  his 
lands.8  On  the  other  hand,  Suetonius  relates  that  the  Emperor 
Claudius,  wishing  to  establish  them  on  his  private  domains,  asked 
authority  for  so  doing  from  the  senate.7  It  appears  by  a  letter  of 
the  younger  Pliny  to  Valerius,  that  the  villages,  which  had  fairs, 
sometimes  made  remonstrances  to  the  senate  against  the  neighboring 

xEmensa  ad  magistros  militum,  et  comites  et  duces  omnes.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib. 
viii.,  tit.  xii.,  leg.  1 1.)  Dukes  are  called  inferior  counts  in  law  2,  tit.  xi.,  book  vii. 

2 Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xii.,  tit.  xii.,  leg.  5. 

3  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  viii.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  4. 

4 ...  Duces  .  .  .  quibus  Rheni  est  mandata  custodia.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  vii., 
tit.  i.,  leg.  9.) 

5  Ducatum  tibi  credidimus   Retiarum,  ut  milites  et  in  pace  regas,  et  cum  eis 
fines  nostros  solemni  alacritate  circumeas.   (Cassiod.  Var.,  lib.  vii.,  cap.  iv.) 

6  Imperium  populi  Romani  hujus  domesticis  nundinis  diminutum  est.   (Cicero, 
Philipp.  ii.,  ch.  xxxvi.) 

7  Jus  nundinarum  in  privata  prsedia  a  consulibus  petiit.   (Suet.  Tranquil.,  Tib. 
Claud.  Caesar,  cap.  xiii.j 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES. 

lords,  who  wished  to  establish  them  on  their  lands.1  A  fragment  of 
Modestin,  in  the  Digest,  testifies  that  from  the  time  of  Justinian  it 
was  the  emperor,  who  authorized  the  creation  of  fairs  in  the  villages,2 
and  a  law  of  Valentinian  and  Valens  makes  known  that  all,  who  at 
tended  them,  were  inviolable  during  their  continuance.3 

The  establishment  of  these  fairs  in  the  villages  belonging  to  the 
lords  had  a  double  object.  First,  they  facilitated  the  sale  of  the 
slender  productions  of  the  soil,  and  procured  for  the  peasants  a 
small  income.  Next,  they  created  for  the  lords  an  annual  revenue 
from  the  various  taxes,  which  they  did  not  fail  to  establish,  on  the 
merchandise  and  provisions  brought  thither.  This,  the  law  of  Val 
entinian  and  Valens  just  cited  very  expressly  mentions.4  Moreover, 
if  we  descend  to  the  middle  ages,  we  find  innumerable  examples  of 
lords,  who  gave  away  or  sold  the  fairs  established  on  their  domains ; 
that  is,  the  annual  revenues  those  fairs  produced.  La  Thomassiere 
relates,  in  his  treatise  on  the  local  customs  of  Berry  and  Loris,  that 
Geoffrey  the  Noble,  Viscount  of  Bourges,  gave,  in  1012,  two  fairs 
on  his  domains  to  the  monks  of  St.  Ambrose.5 

By  force  of  time  these  boroughs  of  ancient  France  grew  and  be 
came  free :  their  lords  accorded  to  them,  little  by  little,  the  right 
of  governing  themselves,  and  the  peasants  who  inhabited  them,  once 
subject  to  poll  tax  and  bodily  service,  after  having  become  proprie 
tors  of  the  lands,  on  which  their  fathers  were  slaves  and  they  were 
serfs,  now  are  the  equals  of  their  ancient  masters,  and  send  repre 
sentatives  to  the  king,  who  is  the  master  of  their  masters. 

1  Vir  prsetorius  Solers  a  senatu  petiit  ut  sibi  instituere  in  agris  suis  nundinas  per- 
mittetur.     Contradixerunt  Vicentinorum  legati.   (Plin.,  lib.  v.,  epist.  iv.) 

2  Nundinis  impetratis  a  principe.    (Digest.,  lib.  1.,  tit.  xi.) 

3  ...  Nullum  in  mercatibus  atque   nundinis  ex  negociatorum  mercibus   con- 
veniant  .  .  .  vel  sub  pnetextu  privati  debiti  aliquam  ibidem  concurrentibus  moles- 
tiam  possint  inferre.   (Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  iv.,  tit.  lx.,  leg  I.) 

4  ...  Vel  in  venalitiis  aut  locorum  temporali  qusestu  et  commodo  privata  exac- 
tione  sectentur.   (Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  iv.,  tit.  lx.,  leg.  I.) 

5  Dono  etiam  ex  mea  proprietate  duas  nundinas  ;  unam  scilicet  in  festivitate  S. 
Petri  de  mense  Junio ;  alteram  in  natale  S.  Ambrosii,  et  unamquamque  per  Sep- 
tenos  dies  totideraque  noctes.  (La  Thomas.  Cout.  Locales,  ch.  xxx.) 


IQ8  HISTORY    OF    THE 

CHAPTER   XI*. 

THE  TRADES'  UNIONS  OF  ANTIQUITY  —  THEIR  FORMATION. 

WE  have  now  the  slaves  set  free  ;  some  in  the  commune,  as 
burghers  ;  others  under  the  feudal  system,  as  peasants. 

What  will  they  become  ? 

Some  will  labor,  economize,  amass,  and  become,  in  the  commune, 
the  body  of  artisans  and  merchants  ;  under  the  feudal  system,  the 
class  of  small  proprietors,  farmers,  and  day-laborers. 

Others,  betrayed  by  physical  and  moral  forces,  by  sickness,  by 
revolutions,  by  the  thousand  disappointments,  which  attend  man  at 
every  turn  of  his  life,  will  not  labor,  will  not  economize,  will  not 
amass,  and  will  form  the  hideous  mass  of  paupers,  thieves,  and  pros 
titutes. 

Sometimes  from  this  mire  some  pellets  of  gold  will  rise,  as  if  to 
show  that,  wherever  man  is,  intelligence,  courage,  and  beauty, 
which  are  three  gifts  of  God,  are  never  entirely  effaced  ;  and  we 
will  see  that  the  paupers  are  a  tree  which  bears  for  fruit.  poets;  rob 
bers  became  conquerors,  and  prostitutes  queens. 

In  general,  then,  the  emancipated  slaves,  whether  in  the  commune 
or  in  feudalism,  divide  into  two  branches  :  those  who  labor,  and 
those  who  do  not  labor.  We  must  now  sketch  the  history  of  both. 
We  commence  with  the  history  of  those  who  labor. 

Although  beggars  were  not  the  objects  of  general  attention  and 
sympathy,  and  only  received  a  sort  of  organization,  by  the  founda 
tion  of  establishments  of  public  charity,  about  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth  century,  we  must  not  thence  conclude  that  the  number,  more 
or  less  considerable,  of  laborers,  produced  by  the  emancipation  of 
slaves,  waited  until  that  epoch  to  receive  their  organization  through 
the  trades'  unions.  The  creation  of  trades'  unions  was  anterior,  by 
at  least  a  thousand  years,  to  the  creation  of  houses  of  refuge.  The 
reason  of  this  fact  is  very  simple.  It  is  clear  that  the  first  emanci 
pated  slaves  having  necessarily  become  laborers,  in  order  to  live, 
these  laborers  were  only  transformed  into  beggars  when  the  ex 
penses  of  the  family,  the  inadequacy  of  compensation,  the  suspen- 


L  K/t 


X 
\  v>JU 

~  * 

-  fcu.  ILl, 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  199 

sion  of  industry  or  other  analogous  causes,  rendered  the  wages 
of  labor  insufficient.  In  historic  order,  then,  laborers  naturally  pre 
cede  beggars;  which  explains  why  establishments  of  public  charity 
only  come  a  long  time  after  the  trades'  unions,  of  which  they  are  in 
some  sort  auxiliary,  since  the  only  resource  of  the  laborer,  in  time 
of  want,  is  to  have  recourse  to  charity,  and  to  ask  of  the  poorhouse 
what  the  workshop  refuses.  We  should  here  remark,  be/ore  going 
farther,  that  to  the  number  of  causes,  which  we  have  already  de 
duced  to  explain  the  rarity  of  beggars,  thieves,  and  public  women, 
in  the  times  anterior  to  the  fourth  century,  we  should  add  the  organ 
ization  of  labor,  and  the  system  of  industrial  and  mercantile  cor 
porations  among  the  ancients,  of  which  we  are  going  to  indicate 
the  formation,  recount  the  development,  and  explain  the  fall. 

The  system  adopted  by  the  ancients  for  the  organization  of 
labor  would  be  impracticable  and  odious  to  our  customs  and  ideas ; 
nevertheless,  it  had  among  them,  and  notably  in  the  Roman  Em 
pire,  the  inappreciable  advantage  of  changing  every  laborer  into 
a  public  functionary,  in  attaching  him  and  his  indissolubly  to  the 
trade,  which  he  had  chosen,  and  of  guaranteeing  to  him  and  his 
always  all  the  necessaries,  and  sometimes  all  the  commodities  of 
life.  It  was  by  means  of  this  provident  organization  that  the  labor 
ing  classes  of  antiquity  so  energetically  resisted  the  causes  of  disso 
lution,  abasement,  and  misery,  which  oppress  the  laboring  classes 
of  modern  times,  and  were  more  than  a  thousand  years  in  being 
transformed,  in  part,  into  beggars,  thieves,  and  prostitutes. 

Corporations  or  trades'  unions  —  for  we  will  use  these  two  terms 
indifferently,  although  the  latter  is  more  particularly  applicable  to 
the  corporations  formed  in  the  middle  ages ;  the  corporations,  of 
all  times  and  of  all  countries,  having  a  common  nature,  differing 
but  little  in  form,  and  not  at  all  in  their  object — corporations  or 
trades'  unions  existed  among  the  Jews  since  the  time  of  Solomon ; 
among  the  Greeks  from  the  time  of  Theseus,  and  among  the  Ro 
mans  from  the  time  of  Numa. 

We  would  remark  —  and  the  principles  above  established  jus 
tify  us  —  that  the  Jewish  trades'  unions  go  back  even  to  the  time 
of  Joshua,  since  we  have  established  that  there  were  communes  in 
Syria  at  that  epoch.  Now  there  is  this  connection  between  com 
munes  and  trades'  unions,  that  communes  were  the  association  of 


2OO  HISTORY    OF    THE 

freed  men  with  a  view  to  government,  and  trades'  unions  were  the 
association  of  freedmen  with  a  view  to  industry  or  commerce. 

Communes,  therefore,  never  existed  without  trades'  unions ;  first, 
because  their  elements  are  the  same  ;  and  next,  because  the  freed 
men,  not  being  originally  landed  proprietors,  were  forced  to  be 
come  artisans  or  merchants.  Wherever,  therefore,  we  find  a  com 
mune,  we  may  be  certain  of  the  existence  of  a  trades'  union.  More 
than  that,  we  have  a  hundred  examples  of  communes,  which  were 
formed  with  a  trades'  union  already  existing,  and  whose  municipal 
charter  was  nothing  but  a  statute  law  for  a  commercial  corporation. 
The  commune  of  Paris  is  an  example.1  We  are  therefore  authorized 
to  date  the  Jewish  trades'  unions  as  far  back  as  Joshua,  because  we 
have  shown  the  establishment  of  communes  in  Syria  at  the  epoch 
of  the  egress  of  the  Israelites  from  the  desert. 

The  Jewish  trades'  unions  are  seen  in  the  different  corps  of  work 
men  employed  to  build  the  temple  of  Solomon,  of  which  Flavius 
Josephus,  in  the  eighth  book  of  his  history,  gives  abundant  indica 
tions.2  The  Greek  trades'  unions,  which  bore  the  name  of  fellow 
ships,  tVatpf  Ja,  are  clearly  indicated  by  Plutarch  in  what  he  has  writ 
ten  of  the  division  of  the  citizens  of  Athens  made  by  Theseus,3  and 

1  We  will  hereafter  show  how  the  commune  of  Paris  had,  as  the  germ  of  its 
formation,  a  company  or  union  of  watermen,  making  part  of  the  general  organ 
ization  of  the  trades  of  the  empire,  under  the  name  of  Nautcz  Parisiaci. 

2  What  Flavius  Josephus  relates  of  the  works  executed  at  different  times  at 
Jerusalem,  in  building,  rebuilding,  and  repairing  the  temple,  leaves  no  doubt  that 
the   workmen   employed,  both  Jews  and  Sidonians,  were   organized   in   trades' 
unions.     Besides,  every  scintilla  of  doubt  is  removed  by  the  following  passage, 
which  clearly  speaks  of  the  hierarchy,  which  prevailed  among  the  workmen,  and 
of  the  thirty-two  hundred  masters,  who  had  forty  thousand  masons  employed  on 
the  walls  of  the  temple.      Hanv   6'  SK   ruv   napoiKuv  oii$   Aow(5»/f  /raraAcAoura,  .  .  .  rtiv  it 
\aronovvrwv  d<fni*<{  pvpiot   TOVTMV  6'  eniparai   rpt^iAioi  *ai  rpiariaioi.    (Flavii  Josephi,  Ant. 
Jud.,  lib.  vii,,  cap.  ii.) 

3  Plutarch  thus  expresses    himself   in  the  Life  of  Theseus,  on    the  separa 
tion  made  by  the  founder  of  Athens  of  the  nobility  and  the  corps  of  artisans : 

"  Ov  pfiv  draKTOv,  ov&i  ftt^iy^ivr^v  ircpittdev  vno  TrAr/floiif  eirixvdevrof  dwpi'rov  ysi/o/^i/r;!/  rqv  (5r?/io- 
upariav'  dAAa  wpwroj  anoKpivaf  XwP't  Eu7rarp«5aj  xai  r£<J/iopoi){  xai  A^iovpyoiif,  Kwarpictaij 
yiftixrKttv  TO.  Sua,  Kai  rraps\eiv  apxovras  arro^ovj,  /cat  vo^wv thtJaoxaAouy  civai."  ^Plutarch, 
Theseus,  ch.  xxv.) 

A  little  above,  he  mentions  a  feast,  which  was  held  in  honor  of  the  pilots,  which 
establishes  the  existence  of  confraternities  among  the  Athenian  workmen.  This 
feast  was  called  KvSipvriota.  "  Mapn-pei  <5e  rovrotf  fipwa  Navaidoov  *ai  4>aia/co{  tiaa^Evov 
0r»«wj  <t>a\npoi  npof  rd)  rou  £X'P<"J  ispai,  /cut  rqv  ioprriv  TO.  KuScpvriaia  <prioiv  etcelvots  rtXsiodai," 
(Plutarch,  Theseus,  cap.  xvii.) 

Moreover,  if  the  text  of  Plutarch  could  leave  any  doubt  as  to  the  fact  of  the 
Athenian  trades'  unions,  a  fragment  of  Gaius  on  the  Twelve  Tables,  preserved  in 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  2OI 

the  Roman  trades'  unions  were,  if  not  instituted,  at  least  regulated 
by  Numa,  according  to  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  and  all  who 
have  written  on  Roman  antiquities.1 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  reconstruct  the  Jewish  trades'  unions 
established  in  different  cities,  as  Jerusalem,  Samaria,  Bethsura,  Jer 
icho,  Tarshish,  Sephoris,(0)  and  others;  first,  because  we  have  very 
few  documents  on  the  interior  history  of  the  Jews,  and  next  because 
a  great  number  of  the  laws  of  their  interior  administration  were 
preserved  only  by  tradition,  like  the  customs  of  France,  of  which 
no  general  digest  was  made  until  the  time  of  Charles  V. ;  and  lastly, 
because  Flavius  Josephus  cites,  in  the  i  yth  chapter,  book  xvi. ,  of  his 
Ancient  History  of  the  Jews,  a  lawr  in  relation  to  the  paternal  power,2 
which  is  not  found  in  the  Bible;  whence  we  are  authorized  to 
believe  that  the  Sacred  Scriptures  do  not  contain  a  complete  collec 
tion  of  the  Hebrew  institutions  down  to  the  Christian  era.  The 
documents  relative  to  the  Greek  trades'  unions  are  a  little  more 
numerous,  and  although  of  all  the  ancient  legislation  of  the  Greeks 
there  remain  only  the  few  fragments  contained  in  the  compilations 
of  John  Meursius  and  Samuel  Petit,3  it  would  not  be  impossible, 

the  Digest,  says  that  the  law  on  the  corps  of  craftsmen  would  seem  to  have  been 
borrowed  from  the  laws  of  Solon  on  the  same  matter ;  and  below  Gaius  cites  the 
very  text  of  the  laws  of  Solon,  in  which  it  is  decreed  that  the  members  of  the 
crafts  may  organize  themselves  int»  trades'  unions  respecting  the  laws  of  the 
state.  See  the  passage  of  Gaius  and  the  text  of  Solon :  "  Sodales  sunt  qui 
eiusdem  collegii  sunt;  quam  Grteci  eraiptiav  vocant.  His  autem  potestatem  facit 
lex  pactionem  quam  velint  sibi  ferre,  dum  ne  quid  ex  publica  lege  corrumpant. 
Sed  fuze  lex-  videtur  ex  lege  Solonis  translata  esse  ;  nam  illuc  ita  est:  "  "Lav  6s  (Wof, 
»';  0parop£j,  fj  lepcji'  dpyia>i>,  fi  vaurai,  fj  ovvanoi,  i)  oporatpoi^  17  S/auajrcH,  »7  ini  \iav  oixoftevoi, 
rj  elf  ifjuroptav.  Ori  av  TOVTWV  (5<a<5wi/rtti  ^poj  dAArjAouj,  xvptov  etvac,  iav  pi  airayopevari 
^/xdffi a  ypa/iuara."  (Digest,  lib.  xlvii.,  tit.  xxii.,  leg.  4.) 

1  Plutarch,  in  his  Life  of  Numa,  does  not  limit  himself  to  saying  that  this  king 
regulated  the  constitution  of  the  Roman  trades'  unions,  but  names  the  corps  of 
craftsmen,  who  made    part  of  them.      See  what  he   says  :   "  TCJJ/  <Se  dAAcji/   avrov 

tfoAim^arui'  rj  Kara  rt^i/aj  havopr)  TOD  rrAfjflouj  ^aAtara  Saw^a^eraj."  And  a  little  farther 
Oil:  "  Hi>  Se  f)  6iavofjirt  Kara  raj  re\.vag,  avAr/rwi/,  xpwo\;<5cdi/,  rfirroi/toi/,  /?a0£a>»',  a/turoro^cjf, 

aKvroieil/uv,  xaA/cewi',  /cepa/iewy."   (Plutarch,  Numa,  cap.  xvii.) 

(a)  Probably  Sardis.  See  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  by  Dr.  William  Smith: 
"  Sardis  was  a  commercial  mart  of  importance;  the  art  of  dyeing  wool  is  said  by 
Pliny  to  have  been  invented  there ;  and  at  any  rate,  Sardis  was  the  entrepot  of 
the  dyed  woollen  manufactures.  Sardis  recovered  the  privilege  of  municipal  gov 
ernment  upon  its  surrender  to  Alexander  the  Great. 

2  This  is  the  law   mentioned   by   Herod  the  Great   in  the  assembly  held  at 
Beryta,  giving  to  fathers  an  absolute  right  of  life  and  death  over  their  children. 
We  have  already  spoken  of  this  law  in  our  third  chapter. 

3  Joannis  Meursii  Themis  Attica,  1685,  in  4:0.     Samuel  Petit,  Leges  Atticae, 
1635,  in  folio. 

14 


202  HISTORY    OF    THE 

with  an  attentive  reading  of  their  comedians,  orators,  and  historians, 
to  reproduce  nearly  all  the  essential  features  of  the  trades'  unions  of 
Athens  or  of  Argos.  We  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  under 
take  this  labor;  first,  because  we  can  fall  b!ick  upon  the  Roman 
trades'  unions,  in  relation  to  which  the  evidences  abound,  and  next, 
because  the  trades'  unions  of  all  antiquity,  we  might  almost  say  of 
all  times,  are  very  nearly  cast  in  the  same  mould. 

Plutarch  relates  in  the  Life  of  Numa,  that  this  prince  established  at 
Rome  the  corps  of  craftsmen.1  In  the  mouth  of  ancient  chroniclers, 
who  rarely  criticized  the  facts  they  reported,  such  a  fact  should 
signify  that  Numa  made  some  regulations  relative  to  the  confrater 
nities  and  fellowships,  which  already  existed  at  Rome,  just  as  King 
John  regulated  the  different  corps  of  craftsmen,  which  existed  in  his 
time  at  Paris.  In  fact,  it  would  be  difficult  to  believe  that,  Rome 
having  formed  a  species  of  commune  from  the  day  of  its  foundation, 

1  We  do  not  know  whether  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  here  give  an  opinion 
on  the  modern  theories  applied  to  the  origin  of  Roman  history,  which  consider 
all  the  royal  period,  which  precedes  the  Twelve  Tables,  as  a  long  myth,  in  which 
Romulus,  Numa,  Tullus  Hostilius,  and  the  other  kings  were  symbols,  and  not 
men  who  really  existed.  This  theory,  imagined  by  the  late  Niebuhr  and  im 
ported  into  France  by  M.  Michelet,  derives  from  the  authority  of  these  two 
names,  eminent  for  historic  learning,  a  solidity,  which  is  proof  against  a  mere 
note.  We  limit  ourselves  to  saying  of  this  theory  what  is  necessary  to  show  that 
it  is  not  without  premeditation  that  we  have  not  accepted  it. 

In  our  opinion,  to  explain  the  origin  of  Rome  by  supposing  that  the  kings  of 
Rome  were  but  symbols,  is  to  create  difficulties  ten  times  greater  than  to  follow 
the  beaten  track  and  suppose  that  these  kings  really  existed.  It  is  well  under 
stood  that  we  content  ourselves  with  expressing  our  opinion,  without  pretending 
to  justify  it,  which  would  carry  us  too  far  from  our  subject.  We  would  only  re 
mark  that  Niebuhr,  who  applied  himself  principally  to  the  history  of  the  Etrus 
can  antiquities,  may  have  had  his  reasons  for  belittling  as  much  as  possible  all 
nationalities  except  that,  of  which  he  was  the  renovator  and  apologist.  More 
over,  without  entering  fully  into  the  discussion,  it  is  well  to  observe  that  Plutarch, 
writing,  as  he  says  in  the  Life  of  Theseus,  on  the  faith  of  a  considerable  number 
of  very  ancient  chronicles,  was  much  nearer  to  Romulus  and  to  Numa  than  we 
are  to  Charlemagne,  and  that  the  idea  never  occurred  to  us  to  take  Charlemagne 
for  a  myth.  Finally,  to  see  only  abstractions  and  allegories  in  the  (to  us)  very  real 
and  plastic  rudiments  of  ancient  histories,  is  to  fall  into  the  same  idea  (it  seems 
to  us)  which  suggested  to  Dupuis  his  famous  explanation  of  Christianity  by  the 
solar  mythology. 

Nevertheless,  we  accord  full  liberty  to  those,  who  have  an  opinion  made  up  on 
these  matters.  We  accept  the  scientific  worth  of  Niebuhr  with  too  much  sincerity 
to  suppose  that  we  had  refuted  him  in  a  few  lines,  and  we  have  personally  known 
too  much  of  the  strength  of  mind  and  immense  acquirements  of  M.  Michelet  npt 
to  recognize  that  his  excellent  book  would  at  least  require  another. 

But  we  are  convinced  that  the  royal  period  of  Roman  history,  excepting  some 
details  introduced  by  the  chroniclers,  was  a  reality  and  not  a  symbol,  and  we 
cite  the  acts  of  Romulus,  Numa,  Tarquin,  and  the  other  kings  as  of  persons  as 
real  as  Dagobert,  Charlemagne,  and  Hugh  Capet. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  2O3 

the  emancipated,  and  consequently  industrial  and  commercial,  class 
should  have  waited  until  the  time  of  Numa  to  create  an  association, 
that  is  to  say,  to  fix  the  rule  of  their  daily  labor  and  transactions. 
However  that  may  have  been,  it  is  under  King  Numa  that  the 
Roman  trades'  unions  enter  into  history. 

From  that  epoch  the  Roman  corporations  passed  through  three 
successive  periods,  each  of  which  marked  them  with  a  particular 
stamp.  The  first  period  commenced  with  King  Numa,  and  ended 
near  about  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Vespasian ;  the  second  com 
menced  with  Vespasian,  and  ended  near  about  the  time  of  the  Em 
peror  Constantine;  the  third  commenced  with  Constantine,  and 
ended  with  the  empire. 

The  first  period  comprises  the  formation  of  the  trades'  unions. 
That  formation  was  spontaneous.  Workmen  of  the  same  craft, 
traders  in  the  same  line  of  business,  masons  with  masons,  watermen 
with  watermen,  came  together,  united,  agreed  upon  certain  fixed 
points  to  regulate  their  relations,  elected  certain  of  them  to  judge 
the  cases  and  apply  the  accepted  rules.  Such  were  the  first  trades' 
unions.  And  there  could  be  as  many  of  them  as  there  were  trades. 

It  appears  that  the  number  of  those  established  at  Rome  under  the 
kings  was  considerable,  and  also  that  their  regulations  were  some 
times  from  a  point  of  view  so  circumscribed,  that  they  conflicted  with 
the  general  spirit  of  the  public  laws.  Then  the  control  of  the  govern 
ment  commenced  over  the  trades'  unions,  and  they  entered  upon  a 
new  period,  on  which  it  will  not  be  useless  to  give  some  explanations. 

We  have  mentioned  above,  and  the  fragment  of  Gaius  proves, 
that  the  Twelve  Tables  prescribed  that  the  trades'  unions  should 
conform  to  the  general  laws  of  the  state ;  and  the  fragment  of  Solon 
establishes  that  a  like  regulation  was  applied  to  the  Athenian  trades' 
unions,  which  shows  that  the  corps  of  craftsmen  have  had,  in  every 
country,  nearly  the  same  destiny.  We  will  show,  when  we  come  to 
treat  of  the  trades'  unions  of  the  middle  ages,  that  after  having 
commenced  by  the  good  will  of  the  workmen  and  merchants  them 
selves,  they  have  equally  ended  by  receiving  their  institution  from 
the  good  will  of  kings. 

To  comprehend  well  this  new  situation  of  the  trades'  unions  under 
the  republic,  that  is  to  say,  at  an  epoch  when  the  liberty  of  industry 
ought,  it  seems,  to  have  been  enlarged  instead  of  being  repressed, 
we  must  take  into  account  some  facts,  which  explain  how  the  restric- 


204  HISTORY    OF    THE 

tions  applied  to  their  primitive  liberty  were  nevertheless  more  favor 
able  than  hurtful  to  the  unions. 

At  whose  service  could  the  workmen  of  Rome  place  themselves? 
Was  it  in  the  service  of  rich  individuals  ?  Never.  The  rich  each 
possessed  a  great  number  of  slaves,1  of  nearly  all  professions,  by 
whom  they  had  their  work  done.  There  were  capitalists,  who  bought 
children  of  ten  to  twelve  years  of  age,  had  them  brought  up  and 
taught  different  professions,  and  reimbursed  themselves  for  their  ad 
vances  by  the  product  of  their  daily  hire,  when  they  were  grown 
up  and  instructed.  Thus  people  went  to  them  to  hire  a  slave  tailor, 
shoemaker,  musician,  mason,  grammarian,  dancing-master,  or  phi 
losopher  ;  and  these,  who  returned  to  the  capitalist  in  the  evening, 
brought  back  to  him  the  price  of  their  day's  labor.  Thus  Crassus 
maintained,  for  profit  by  hiring  them,  readers,  scribes,  goldsmiths, 
silversmiths,  stewards,  housekeepers,  and  carvers.2  This  is  true  of 
all  the  people  of  antiquity,  the  Greeks  as  well  as  the  Romans.  For 
example,  we  find  in  the  treatise  of  Xenophon  on  the  Revenues  of 
Attica  the  most  circumstantial  details  as  to  the  hirers  of  slaves,  and 
as  to  the  profit  of  their  industry.  Xenophon  cites,  among  others, 
one  named  Nicias,  who  had  a  thousand  slaves,  whom  he  hired  to  a 
contractor  for  working  mines,  for  an  obolus  a  day  per  head.8 

1  Among  the  ancients,  when  they  wanted  to  know  a  man's  fortune,  they  asked 
him  how  many  working  slaves  he  had  ;  that  is,  how  many  exercising  a  profession, 
whose  wages   constituted  a  fixed   income   fpr  the  master.     Socrates  having  at 
Athens  called  to  see  a  pretty  freedwoman,  called  Theodota,  holding  the  position 
of  what  we  call  in  Paris  a  kept-woman,  asked  her,  in  admiration  of  the  luxury 
of  her  house   and  her  numerous  domestics,  if  she  had  many  slave  workmen. 
(Xenophon,  Memorabilia,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xi.,  g  4.) 

2  Plutarch,  M.  Crassus,  cap.  ii. 

3  Xenophon,  De  Vectegal.,  cap.  iv.,  \\  14,  15. 

It  results  clearly  from  two  passages  of  the  same  treatise  that  the  senate,  or 
rather  the  state,  bought  a  great  number  of  slaves,  who  were  made  to  labor  in  their 
different  professions,  either  on  hire  to  individuals,  or  in  the  cultivation  of  lands, 
which  they  (the  senate  or  state)  took  on  lease;  as,  for  example,  in  the  cultivation 
of  the  lands  of  the  clergy,  in  keeping  their  houses,  or  in  receiving  the  offerings, 
alms,  or  rent  for  seats  in  the  pagan  temples. 

$$  23,  24  of  the  same  book  prove  that  the  state  bought  slaves  to  draw  a  rev 
enue  from  their  labor,  and  §  19  establishes  that  the  state  took  the  lands  of  the 
pagan  clergy  on  lease.  In  a  preceding  and  subsequent  passage,  Xenophon  pro 
poses  to  the  Athenians  to  create  a  sort  of  bank,  the  eapital  of  which,  consisting 
of  slaves,  should  be  applied  to  the  development  of  private  industry  for  a  certain 
%>nsideration.  (a)  Finally,  as  to  the  small  receipts  of  the  temples,  for  example, 
from  the  rent  of  seats,  we  limit  ourselves  to  citing  from  among  other  authorities 
this  passage  of  Tertullian.  "  Exigitis  mercedem  pro  solo  templi,  pro  aditu  sacri ; 
non  licet  deos  nosce  gratis:  venales  sunt."  (Tertul.  Apologet.,  cap.  xiii.) 

(a)  Did  General  Howard  get  his  ideas  of  the  administration  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  from 
Xenophon's  Treatise  on  the  Revenues  of  Attica? 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  2O5 

So  it  was  among  the  Romans.  Thus  Cato  the  elder  had  a  number 
of  slave  workmen,  according  to  Plutarch.  He  even  lent  money  to 
his  own  slaves,  with  which  to  buy  others  still  young,  to  whom  they 
taught  trades,  and  resold  at  a  great  profit,  in  which  Cato  partici 
pated.1 

Crassus  also  had  a  battalion  of  five  hundred  slaves,  of  all  trades 
connected  with  architecture.  When  he  learned  that  a  house  was 
on  fire,  he  hastened  to  offer  to  buy  it.  It  is  easy  to  comprehend  that 
at  such  a  moment  the  price  would  be  greatly  diminished.  The  pur 
chase  concluded,  Crassus  set  his  five  hundred  slaves  to  work,  who 
put  out  the  fire  and  repaired  the  house.  It  was  thus  that  he  became 
the  owner  of  an  entire  quarter  of  Rome.2 

It  was  not,  then,  to  the  rich  that  working-men  united  in  trades' 
unions  could  offer  their  labor.  Was  it  to  the  poor?  But  even 
among  these,  the  trades'  unions  were  met  by  the  competition  of  the 
hirers  of  slaves.  And  such  competition  !  As  we  have  already  said, 
the  competition  of  such  capitalists  as  Crassus,  who  often  repeated  — 
it  was  his  favorite  saying  —  that  no  man  could  boast  of  being  rich 
without  having  the  means  of  keeping  in  pay  an  army  of  40,000 
men.8 

There  remained  only  the  government,  which  was  the  true  patron 
of  the  trades'  unions,  and  the  works  undertaken  by  it  formed  the 
only  permanent  workshop  where  labor  could  gain  its  daily  wages. 

On  its  side,  the  government  needed  always  a  number  and  variety 
of  workmen  sufficient  to  execute  its  works,  and  how  great  were  the 
works  executed  by  the  Roman  government !  How  many  and  such 
temples !  So  many  and  such  aqueducts  !  So  many  and  such 
bridges !  Here  the  numerous  workmen  of  Cato,  the  five  hundred 
of  Crassus  could  do  nothing  ;  corporations,  associations  of  work 
ing-men,  were  needed ;  and  it  was  because  of  being  always  their 
patrons  and  employers,  that  the  senate  and  the  emperors  interfered 
to  legislate  for  them.  The  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  which  or 
dains  that  every  corporation  shall  conform  to  the  general  laws  of 
the  state,  is  then  in  reality  the  first  privilege  established  in  favor  of 
the  laboring  classes  already  regularly  organized  at  that  epoch ;  since 
it  to  a  certain  extent  created  a  monopoly  in  their  favor,  prevented 

1  Plutarch,  Marcus  Cato,  cap.  xxi.  2  Plutarch,  M.  Crassus,  cap.  ii. 

3  Plutarch,  M.  Crassus,  cap.  ii. 


2O6  HISTORY    OF    THE 

interference  and  loss  to  industry  by  prohibiting  an  unrestrained 
competition,  and  enriched  all  the  existing  trades'  unions  at  the  ex 
pense  of  all  those,  who  could  not  organize  into  unions. 

From  the  establishment  of  the  republic  to  its  fall,  the  Roman 
government  never  ceased  to  interfere  by  legislation  with  the  trades' 
unions,  to  consolidate  them,  to  simplify  them,  above  all  to  render 
them  in  a  measure  sole  collectors  of  the  public  revenues,  and  to  make 
them  the  instruments  and  interior  organs  of  the  administrative  life. 
See,  in  few  words,  how  the  trades'  unions  drew  near  to  the  state,  and 
ended  by  becoming  an  integrant  part  of  it. 

As  the  republic  extended  her  conquests,  she  successively  increased 
her  public  domains  and  her  armies  ;  that  is  to  say,  her  revenues  and 
expenditures.  For  a  government,  which  had  neither  our  centraliza 
tion,  nor  our  hierarchy  of  functionaries,  nor  our  rapid  means  of 
transportation,  nor  our  banks,  nor  our  system  of  credit,  which  im 
provises  in  twenty-four  hours  as  many  contractors  as  needed,  it  was 
very  difficult  to  regulate  and  collect  the  revenues,  not  only  from  the 
Roman  citizens  and  the  conquered  provinces,  but  principally  from 
the  immense  and  innumerable  possessions  belonging  to  the  public 
domain,  and  from  the  extensive  lands  of  the  pagan  clergy,  which 
had  to  be  let  out  on  leases  more  or  less  long. 

The  taxes  under  the  Roman  Empire  had  not  the  unity  and  sim 
plicity  of  modern  states.  To  obtain  an  idea  of  them,  we  must  go 
back  to  the  taxes  of  every  kind  that  existed  in  the  middle  ages.  But 
it  may  be  said  that  the  Roman  taxes  were  of  two  great  classes. 
The  first  comprised  the  taxes  assessed  on  persons  and  paid  in 
money ;  the  second  the  taxes  paid  in  kind  by  the  farmers  of  the 
public  domain.  The  taxes  in  money  were  collected  under  the  em 
perors  by  the  praetorian  prefects,  with  the  aid  of  inferior  officers, 
and  were  applied  to  feeding  and  paying  the  troops,  as  Zosimus  re 
lates  in  what  he  says  of  Constantine ; l  the  taxes  in  kind  were  ordi 
narily  received  by  farmers-general  and  by  the  trades'  unions,  as  is 
proved  by  the  laws  on  master  butchers  and  pork  butchers,  which  we 
will  cite  below. 

The  history  of  the  possessions  of  the  pagan  clergy  would  be  very 
curious  and  ample.  We  are  forced  to  leave  it  for  the  volume  in 

1  Zosim.  Hist.  Rom.,  lib.  ii.,  in  Constantin.  See  also  a  law  of  Valentinian 
cited  in  note  3  of  page  209. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  2O/ 

which  we  will  treat  of  the  history  of  the  noble  classes..  Meanwhile 
we  limit  ourselves  to  saying  that  the  lands  of  the  clergy  were  en- 
feoffed,  or,  which  comes  to  the  same  thing,  let  out  on  long  leases, 
and  the  rents,  paid  in  kind,  were  generally  received  by  the  trades' 
unions;  for  example,  by  the  decurions,  who  formed  a  veritable 
union,  and  who  had  the  right  of  farming  out  the  lands  of  the  public 
domain  and  of  the  temples,  at  least  from  the  end  of  the  fourth  cen 
tury,  as  is  proved  by  a  law  of  Arcadius  and  Honorius  of  the  first  of 
December,  400.  l  A  passage  of  the  treatise  of  Xenophon  on  the 
Revenues  of  Attica  proves  that  the  property  of  the  pagan  clergy 
was  farmed  out  in  the  same  way  among  the  Greeks.2 

Add  to  this  the  care  of  transporting  to  Rome  the  public  revenues, 
or  of  having  them  at  certain  points  for  the  support  of  the  armies, 
that  of  provisioning  the  city,  that  of  having  ready  in  the  most  dis 
tant  and  desert  localities  those  legions  of  marvellous  workmen,  who 
have  covered  Spain,  Gaul,  Germany,  England,  Greece,  Asia  Minor, 
Egypt,  Syria,  and  the  north  of  Africa,  the  whole  known  universe, 
with  indestructible  monuments. 

It  was  by  the  aid  of  the  trades'  unions  that  the  government  or 
ganized  its  administrative  service,  its  distribution  of  military  forces, 
and  the  development  of  its  architectural  splendor.  There  were 
trades'  unions  charged  with  the  collection  of  the  revenues  ;  others 
that  supplied  Rome  with  provisions  ;  others  that  fed  it  ;  others  that 
took  care  of  the  edifices  ;  others  that  clothed  the  soldiers  ;  others 
that  armed  them  ;  others  that  supplied  the  interior  and  domestic 
wants  of  a  city  full  of  riches  and  devoted  to  all  kinds  of  pleasures. 
The  trades'  unions  then  were  the  framework  of  bone  that  supported 
this  great  Roman  body.  It  was  by  them  that  the  senate  and  the 
emperors  acted  after  having  spoken  ;  it  was  by  them  that  so  many 
different  provinces,  nations,  tongues,  and  religions  were  held  to 
gether  ;  it  was  by  them  that  the  material  acts  conceived  by  the 
sovereign  people  were  put  into  operation  ;  finally,  it  was  they  that 
executed  all  those  minute  details  of  daily  labor,  for  which  we  have 


.  .  et  reipublicse  loca  .  .  .  vel  ea  quse  de  jure  templorum  aut  per  diver- 
sos  petita,  aut  aeternabili  domui  fuerint  congregata,  vel  civitatum  territoriis  ambiun- 
tur,  sub  perpetua  conductione,  salvo  dumtaxat  canone,  quem  sub  examine  habitae 
discussionis  constitit  adscriptum,  penes  municipes,  collegiatos,  corporatos  urbium 
singularum  conlocata  permaneant.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  x.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  5.) 

8  ...  MiaQovvrai  yovvKal  Tenivr),  Kai  upa.  (Xenophon,  De  Vectigal.,  cap.  iv.,  \  19.) 


2O8  HISTORY    OF    THE 

that  crowd  of  contractors,  private  workshops,  and  free  laborers, 
who  are  the  active  part  of  modern  states,  but  were  completely  un 
known  to  the  empires  of  antiquity.  • 

The  Roman  trades'  unions  were  naturally  of  two  sorts,  although 
at  bottom  they  had  the  same  regulations,  the  same  privileges,  the 
same  duties,  and  the  same  object.  They  were  divided,  or  may  be 
divided,  into  commercial  and  industrial  unions.  In  the  law  they 
bear  the  name  of  colleges,  collegia,  or  of  corporations,  corpus.  A 
law  of  Honorius  and  Arcadius,  of  the  year  412,  calls  the  mem 
bers  of  the  trades'  unions  indifferently  collegiati  or  corporaii* 

The  principal  commercial  corporations  of  the  empire  were  the 
sailors'  union,  navicularii ;  that  of  the  bakers,  pistores ;  butchers, 
suarii ;  limeburners,  calcis  coctores ;  weavers,  linteones ;  tailors, 
gynaceiarii  ;  the  shell-fish  gatherers  and  silk-dyers,  murileguli ;  car 
riers,  bastagarii  ;  wine  merchants,  vini  susceptores ;  lumbermen, 
dendrophori ;  and  a  crowd  of  others,  not  omitting  the  respectable 
corps  of  sworn  measurers  of  grain  at  the  warehouses  of  the  port  of 
Ostia,  mensores  portuenses. 2 

We  must  now  give  an  idea  of  the  manner  in  which  all  these  cor 
porations  worked  and  were  connected.  We  will  take,  for  example, 
the  bakers  and  butchers. 

The  port  of  Ostia  was  the  great  entrepot  of  Rome.  Thither  the 
corporation  of  watermen  were  required  to  bring  the  revenues  of  the 
lands  of  the  public  domain,  which  were  immense.  Almost  always 
the  revenues  of  the  domain  were  in  kind,  which  would  prove  that 
the  lands  were  held  under  leases  by  the  farmers,  who  paid  half  the 
product,  or  a  third,  according  to  their  fertility.  Moreover,  we  are 
authorized  to  believe  that  each  commercial  union,  as  we  have  said, 
collected  the  tax  in  kind,  which  appertained  to  its  specialty ;  that 
is  to  say,  the  bakers  received  from  the  lands  of  the  domain  the  rent 
in  grain ;  the  wine  merchants  the  rent  in  wine ;  and  so  of  the  rest. 
The  fact  is  that  the  butchers,  by  agents,  collected  the  rents  in  hogs 

1  Collegiatos,  et  vituarios,  et  nemesiacos,  signiferos,  cantabrarios,  et  singularum 
urbium  corporatos.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  vii.,  leg.  2.) 

2  Navicularii,    Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiii.,  tit.    v.  —  Pistores,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii. — 
Suarii,  ibid.,  tit.  iv. —  Calcis  coctores,  ibid.,  tit.  vi.  —  Linteones,  lib.  x.,  tit.  xx., 
leg.  6,  8,  9,  16,  et  passim.  —  Gynaeceiarii,  ibid.,  leg.  2,  3,  7,  et  passim.  —  Murile 
guli,  ibid.,  leg.  5,  12,  et  passim. —  Bastagarii,  ibid.,  leg.  4,  II. —  Vini  susceptores, 
lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  4.  —  Dendrophori,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  vii.,  leg.  I.— Mensores 
portuenses,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  9. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  209 

and  cattle  from  the  farmers  of  certain  provinces,  as  in  Lucania, 
Campania,  Brutium,  and  Samnium.  We  find  this  much  in  detail  in 
a  law  of  Constantine  of  the  year  326, l  in  a  constitution  of  Julian  of 
the  year  363, 2  and  especially  in  a  law  of  Valentinian  and  Marcian 
of  the  year  45 2. 3 

The  sailors'  union,  then,  for  a  fixed  charge  for  freight,  transported 
the  revenues  in  kind  to  the  warehouses  of  the  port  of  Ostia.4  The 
bakers'  union,  located  at  Rome,  became  in  a  measure  responsible 
for  the  grain  as  soon  as  it  was  in  the  warehouses.5  They  had  it 
measured  before  admitting  it  into  the  warehouses  by  the  experts  of 
the  measurers'  union,6  and  they  had  it  transported  to  Rome  by 
another  union  of  the  coasters  of  the  Tiber,  distinct  from  the  great 
union  of  navicularii,  and  called  corpus  caudtcarium,  as  appears  from 
a  law  of  Honorius  of  the  year  41 7. T 

The  caudicarii,  on  arriving  at  Rome,  distributed  the  grain  among 

1  Ea  praetia,  quae  in  Campania  per  singulos  annos  reperiuntur,  suariis  urbis  Romae 
debent  solvi,  ita  ut  periculo  suariorum  populo  porcinae  species  adfatim  praebealur. 
(Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  3.) 

2  ...  Lucanus  possessor  et  Bruttius,  quos  longae  subvectionis  damna  quatiebant, 
possint,  si  velint,  speciem  moderatam .  .  .  dissolvere.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit. 
iv.,  leg.  4,  ^  2.) 

3  Nee  ante  quidquam  de  Lucania  Samnioque  provinciis  area  praetoriana  depos- 
cat,  quam  suariis  exigentibus  debitum  omne  solvatur.  (Cod.  Theod.,  leg.  novell. 
Theod.  lib.,  tit.  xxix.) 

4  Ex  quocumque  Hispanice  littore  portum  urbis  Romae  navicularii  navis  intra- 
verit.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiii.,  tit.  v.,  leg.  4.)     Patronos  horreorum  portuensium. 
(Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  xxiii.,  leg.  I.) 

Cassiodorus  reports  at  length  the  instructions  given  by  the  emperor  to  the  pre 
fect  of  subsistence,  to  the  end  that  he  should  oversee  the  bakers.  We  read  as 
follows  :  ...  Si  querela  panis,  ut  assolet,  concitetur,  tu  promissor  ubertatis  sedi- 
tiones  civicas  momentanea  satisfactione  dissolvis.  ...  In  fraudulentos  distringe; 
panis  pondera  sequus  examinator  intende;  sollicitius  auro  pensetur.  (Cassiodor. 
Variar.,  lib.  vi.,  formul.  xviii.) 

5  'Haay  ,£f  dpxalov  Kara    ryv  ncyiarrjv  Pwfirjv   OIKOI   Tra/^eyEfct?,  £v   otj    6  rrj  no\fi   Xopiyovpt- 

vovs  aprof  eyivsro.  (Socrat.  Hist.  Ecclesiast.,  lib.  v.,  cap.  8.) 

6  Ad  excludendas  fraudes  .  .  .portuensium  mensorum.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv., 
tit.  iv.,  leg.  9.) 

7  Qui  navem  Tiberinam  habere  fuerit  ostensus,  onus  reipublicae  necessarium  ag- 
noscat.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  xxi.,  leg.  I.) 

Besides,  these  boatmen  of  the  Tiber,  nautce  Tiberni,  were  identically  the  same 
as  those  designated  in  law  9,  title  4,  of  lib.  xiv.,  and  in  law  2,  title  3,  of  the 
same  book,  under  the  name  of  caudicarii,  as  is  established  by  this  passage  from 
Seneca :  "  Et  naves  nunc  quoque,  quse  ex  antiqua  consuetudine  per  Tiberim  corn- 
meatus  subvehunt,  caudicarice  vocantur.''  (Seneca,  De  Brevit.  Vit.,  cap.  13.) 

On  the  other  hand,  Varro  thus  explains  the  signification  of  caudicaritis :  Quod 
antiqui  plures  tabulas  conjunctas  codices  dicelnnt,  a  quo  in  Tiberi  naves  codica~ 
rias  appellamus.  (Varro  apud  Nonium,  cap.  xiii.,  num.  12.) 


2IO  HISTORY    OF    THE 

the  bakeries,  which  were  situated  very  nearly  one  in  each  quarter, 
that  is  to  say,  to  the  number  of  fourteen  for  the  whole  city.1  These 
bakeries,  which  had  a  separate  accountability  and  were  directed  by 
three  master  bakers,  of  whom  one  filled  the  office  of  dean 2  for  five 
years,  and  all  were  elected,  were  so  many  members  and  branches 
of  the  Roman  bakery.  The  grain  was  then  ground  in  hand-mills,3 
and  the  bread  baked  there,4  and  sold  for  the  consumption  of  all.  It 
appears  by  a  law  of  Honorius,  of  the  year  398,  that  the  custom  was 
to  make  bread  of  three  qualities.5 

The  butchers  at  Rome  were  divided  into  two  unions,  that  of  the 
pork  butchers,  suarii,  and  that  of  the  mutton  and  beef  butchers, 
pecuarii.  Butcher's  meat  was  never  used  except  by  slaves  and  poor 
people.  The  rich  ate  fish,  poultry,  and  fat  venison.  Pork,  as  we 
have  said,  was  used  exclusively  for  slaves.  The  beef  and  mutton 
butchers'  union  declined  very  much,  and  a  law  of  Honorius  of  the 
year  419  reunited  them  to  their  fortunate  rivals,  the  pork  butchers' 
union.6  The  butchers  were  charged  with  going  personally  into  the 
stock-raising  provinces  to  collect  the  taxes  in  kind  from  the  Roman 
citizens,  and  the  rents,  which  were  also  in  kind,  of  the  lands  of  the 
public  domain,  which  were  either  enfeoffed  or  leased  out.  A  law 
of  Constantine,  of  the  year  326,  nevertheless  shows  that  the  pro 
prietors  or  tenants  had  the  option  of  paying  the  tax  in  money.1 

1  Septem  cohortes  opportunis  locis  constituit  (Caesar),  ut  binas  regiones  urbis 
unaquseque  cohors  tueatur.  (Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  i.,  tit.  xv.,  leg.  3,  in  proem.) 

2  These  master  bakers,  who  administered  the  branch  bakeries,  are  designated  by 
the  name  of  patroni  pistorum,  in  laws  2,  7,  and  12  of  tit.  in.,  book  xiv.,  of  the  Theo- 
dosian  Code.     Law  7,  in  reference  to  the  ftean,  says :  Post  quinquennii  tempus 
emensum,  unus  prior  e  patronis  pistorum  otio  donetur. 

3  Cum  servis,  molis.    (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  7.) 

*Annona  in  pane  cocto  domibus  exhibenda.  (Cod,  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  xvi., 
leg.  2.) 

5  Horace  mentions  bread,  which  he  calls  second  quality  : 

Vivit  siliquis  et pane  secundo.  (Horat.  Epis.,  lib.  ii.,  epis.  I.,  v.  123.) 

It  remains  to  be  ascertained  whether  this  was  better  than  that  which  Suetonius 
calls  black  bread.  Panem  sordidum  oblatum  aspernatus  est.  (Suet.  Tranq.,  Tib. 
Claud.  Nero,  cap.  xlviii.) 

Galen  mentions  four  kinds  of  bread ;  the  first,  which  he  calls  enXtyi/tn??,  of  the 
finest  flour;  the  second,  ff£>«5aX»r»jj,  made  of  shorts;  the  third,  ffuy/co^Kmicoj,  of 
unbolted  flour ;  the  fourth,  pwrapoj,  that  is  to  say  black,  of  which  one  variety,  the 
most  inferior,  was  called  6  aproj  mruptaj,  bran  bread. 

6Suariis  pecuarii  jungantur.   (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  10.) 

T  In  arbitrio  suo  possessor  habeat,  ne  suario  pecuniam  solvat ;  quod  ideo  per- 
missutn  est  ne  in  sestimando  porcorum  pondere  licentia  suariis  prsebeatur.  (Cod. 
Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  2.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  211 

Generally,  as  we  have  said,  they  paid  in  kind,  and  the  rent  of  a 
forest  or  of  a  heath  was  fixed  at  so  many  pounds  of  pork.  The 
animals  were  then  weighed  before  delivery  to  the  butchers,1  and, 
the  law  adds,  after  having  passed  a  night  without  food.  A  law  of 
Julian,  of  the  year  363,  to  obviate  the  fluctuations  in  the  price  of 
animals,  ordains  that  they  shall  be  appraised  at  least  in  Campania ; 
that  the  butchers  shall  receive  the  taxes  or  revenues  in  money,  and 
that  they  should  buy  the  hogs  wherever  they  wished,  as  the  union 
might  find  to  their  advantage.2  When  purchased,  the  hogs  were 
taken  to  Rome,  killed,  cut  up,  and  sold  in  the  different  quarters  of 
the  city,  exactly  as  the  bakers  did  with  the  bread. 

The  interior  organization  of  the  Roman  trades'  unions  appears  to 
have  been  very  simple.  Those  of  the  same  trade,  for  example  the 
bakers,  who  were  scattered  throughout  the  empire,  were  divided 
into  groups  in  the  different  provinces  and  cities.  A  law  of  Hono- 
rius  and  Theodosius  fixes  the  maximum  of  each  of  these  local  unions 
at  563  members.3  Every  five  years  these  members  elected  a  dean 
and  two  assessors.  We  will  see  hereafter  that  Pliny  the  younger 
asked  of  Trajan  permission  to  establish  a  union  of  150  members. 

Each  of  these  unions  elected  annually  officers,  who  bore  the  name 
of  patrons.  This  is  seen  specially  in  the  imperial  laws  for  bakers,4 
boatmen  of  the  Tiber,  and  measurers  of  grain  at  the  port  of  Ostia.5 
These  patrons  were  also  called  syndics  in  all  the  unions  generally,6 
and  there  were  at  least  four  for  each  local  union.  A  law  of  Hono- 

1  Pondus  porcorum  trutinae  examine,  non  oculorum  libertate  quaeratur  .  .  .  ani 
mal  vero  a  possessore  tradendum,  ob  digeriem,  prius  unius  noctistantum  jejunitate 
vacuetur.   (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  4.) 

2  Per  singulos  itaque  annos  juxta  praetia  quae  reperiuntur  in  publica  conversa- 
tione,  per  Campaniam  habitentes  pecuniam  pro  singulis  libris  porcinae  praecipian- 
tur  exsolvere ;  ita  ut,  non  ad  praetia  quae  in  urbe   Roma  reperiuntur,  sed  quae 
apud  Campanos  in  publicis  ruribus  habentur,  nummariae  exactionis  facultas  dene- 
getur.   (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  3.) 

3  Cessante  omni  ambitione,  omni  licentia,  quingentorum  sexaginta  trium  col- 
legiatorum  numerus  maneat,  nullique  his   addendi  mutandive,  vel  in  defuncti 
locum  substituendi  pateat  copia,  itaut  judicio  tuae  sedis  (Pnef.  Pret.)  sub  ipsorum 
presentia  corporatorum,  in  eorum  locum  quos  humani  subtraxerint  casus,  ex  eodem 
quo  illi  fuerant,  corpore,    subrogentur;  nulli   alii   corporatorum  praeter   dictum 
numerum  per  patrocinia  immunitate  concessa.  (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  iv.,  tit.  Ixiii.,  leg.  5.) 

*Unus  prior  e patronis  pistorum.   (Cod   Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  7.) 

5  Ad  excludendas patronorum  fraudes.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  9.) 

6  In  communi  totius  corporis  causa,  syndico  ordinato.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit, 
ii.,  leg.  42.) 


212  HISTORY    OF    THE 

rius  and  Theodosius,  of  the  year  41 7, 1  speaks  of  the  three  first  pa 
trons,  which  must  be  understood  without  prejudice  to  the  dean,  of 
whom  we  are  about  to  speak.  One  of  these  patrons  or  syndics  was 
named  for  five  years,  by  the  whole  entire  corporation,  administra 
tor-general  of  the  interests  of  the  society,2  who  bore  the  title  of 
prior,  and  he  had  charge  of  all  the  property,  movable  and  immov 
able.3  All  the  trades'  unions  were  organized  after  this  general 
plan. 

The  industrial  unions,  in  relation  to  which  the  documents  are  not 
always  so  clear  nor  so  abundant,  were  formed  after  the  same  model. 
A  law  of  Constantine  of  the  year  337  mentions  thirty-five  of  them. 
There  were  others,  which  are  mentioned  by  authors,  and  also  in 
later  laws.  Behold  the  thirty-five  mentioned  in  the  law  of  Constan 
tine,  some  of  which  it  is  not  easy  to  recognize,  either  because  the 
texts  have  been  altered,  or  because  their  specialties  have  perished 
in  the  wreck  of  ancient  civilization  ! 

There  were  unions  of  the  following  trades  :  architects,  architect! ; 
carvers  in  plaster,  laqttearii  ;  a  kind  of  roofers,  of  whom  Tertullian 
speaks  in  his  treatise  on  idolatry,  and  whom  he,  like  Constantine, 
calls  albarii  /*  carpenters,  tignarii ;  doctors,  medici ;  lapidaries, 
lapidarii ;  chasers  in  silver,  argentarii ;  masons,  structores  ;  veteri 
narians,  mulo  medici ;  stonecutters,  quadratarii ;  furbishers,  barbari- 
carii ;  a  union,  which  Cujas  believes  to  have  been  that  of  the 
pavers,  and  whose  name,  probably  corrupted,  is  in  the  law  of  Con 
stantine  scasore s  ;  painters,  pictores ;  sculptors,  sculp f ores  ;  pearl- 
dressers,  diatritarii ;  joiners,  intestinarii ;  statuaries,  statuarii ;  de 
corative  painters,  musivarii ;  gravers  on  copper,  cerarii ;  black 
smiths,  ferrarii ;  marble-cutters,  marmorarii ;  gilders,  deauratores  ; 
founders,  fusores  ;  dyers  in  purple,  blatiarii;  pavers -in  mosaic,  tes- 
sellarii ;  goldsmiths,  aurifices ;  looking-glass  makers,  spec'ularii  ; 

1 ...  Decernimus  ne  in  singulis  tres  primes  patronos  corporum  singulorum. 
(Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  9.) 

2  Unus  e  patronis  totius  consensu  corporis  eligatur,  qui  per  quinquennium  cus- 
todiam  .  .  .  suscipiat.   (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  9.) 

3  Post  quinquennii  tempus  emensum,  unus  prior  e  patronis  .  .  .  ei  qui  sequitur, 
officinam  cum  animalibus,  servis,  molis,  fundis  dotalibus,  pistrinorum  postremo 
omnem  enthecam  tradat  atque  consignet.   (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  7.) 

4  Scit  albarius  tector  et  tecta  sarsire,  et  tectoria  inducere,  et  cisternam  Hare,  et 
cimatia  distendere,  et  multa  alia  ornamenta  praeter  simulacra  parietibus  inscris- 
pare.  (Tertul.  de  Idol.,  cap.  viii.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES. 

wheelwrights,  carpettfarii  ;  water-carriers,  aqua  libratores  ;  glaziers, 
vitriarii ;  workers  in  ivory,  eburarii ;  fullers,  fullones ;  potters, 
figuli  ;  plumbers,  plumbarii  ;  furriers,  pelliones}- 

The  law  of  Constantine  only  mentions  these  trades'  unions,  al 
though  there  were  many  others.  It  suffices  to  say  that  every  pro 
fession  had  its  laws  ;  that  there  was  a  fortune-tellers'  union,  men 
tioned  in  a  law  of  Honorius  and  Arcadius  of  the  year  412,  under  the 
name  of  corpus  nemesiacorum?  and  that  the  same  emperors  did  not 
disdain  to  occupy  themselves  with  regulations  for  the  venerable  mas- 
ter-banner-bearers-at-feasts,3  and  with  their  numerous  varieties,  from 
the  signifen,  who  were  the  genus,  to  the  cantabrarii,  who  were  the 
species. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 
ANCIENT  TRADES'  UNIONS  —  THEIR  DEVELOPMENT. 

TO  comprehend  fully  the  revolution,  which  took  place  in  the 
trades'  unions  toward  the  commencement  of  the  fourth  cen 
tury,  it  is  necessary  to  retrace  our  steps,  and  elucidate  a  fact,  which 
we  have  only  intimated  :   we  speak  of  the  passage  of  the  trades' 
unions  from  the  free  to  the  obligatory  state. 

The  point  of  departure  of  the  trades'  unions  is  clearly  character 
ized  in  the  law  of  Solon,  on  the  Greek  fraternities,  which  has  been 
preserved  in  the  Basilicon,  and  in  the  Digest,  and  which  we  have 
already  cited  from  the  latter  compilation.*  By  the  terms  of  that 
law  all  working-men,  all  merchants,  all  of  the  same  industry  or 
trade,  had  the  right  to  unite,  organize,  and  form  a  society,  provided 
that  the  public  laws  did  not  forbid  it  j  5  or,  in  other  words,  provided 

1  Cod.  Theod.  de  Excusationib.  artific.,  lib.  xiii.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  2.)         • 

2Nemesiaci,  a  dea  Nemesi,  quse  eadem  est  cum  bona  Fortuna.  (Cod.  Theod. 
Notul.  Gothof.  ad  leg.  2,  tit.  vii.,  lib.  xiv.) 

3  Signiferi,  .  .  .  qui  scilicet  signa,  et  in  his  deorum,  ferebant  in  pompis,  festis, 
ludicris  gentilitiis.  (Ibid.) 

*  See  note  3,  page  200. 

6  Ea»/  //>)  «7rayop£y<nj  Srjfjioaia  rrpay/uara,  according  to  the  Basilicon  (vide  Cujac.,  obser- 
vat.,  lib.  vii.,  cap.  xxx.  in  fine;  or  idv  /^>j  drrayopewn/  (5r?^offia  ypa/i^ara,  accordingto  the 
Digest.  (Vide  Digest.,  lib.  xlvii.,  tit.  xxii.,  leg.  4.) 


214  HISTORY    OF    THE 

that  the  association  formed  did  not  infringe  the  common  law.  We 
have  elsewhere  shown  that  the  Roman  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  on 
corporations  contained  the  same  provisions  as  the  Greek  law,  so  much 
so  that  one  appeared  to  Gaius  to  be  the  translation  of  the  other. 

Thus  the  first  thing  to  be  established  relative  to  trades'  unions, 
Greek  or  Roman,  is  that  they  commenced  by  being  free,  by  having 
the  right  of  the  initiative  in  their  formation,  in  conformity  to  the 
law.  This  is  what  we  call  their  point  of  departure. 

History  proves  that  the  Roman  unions  preserved  this  right  of 
initiative  first  under  the  kings,  then  under  the  consular  government, 
and  lastly  under  the  imperial  government,  nearly  up  to  the  time  of 
Trajan. 

During  this  period  of  more  than  seven  centuries,  counting  from 
Numa,  unions  were  formed,  subject  to  be  suppressed  when  they  vio 
lated  the  general  regulations  of  the  state ;  but  it  is  very  clear  that 
those,  which  were  destroyed  during  this  interval  as  illegal,  were 
created  without  authorization,  since  an  authorization  would  have 
rendered  them  legal.  Besides,  it  is  not  less  clear  that  there  could  be 
no  clandestine  unions,  since  the  effect  of  every  union  was  to  confer 
privileges,  and,  consequently,  to  produce  civil  effects. 

The  first  act  of  reform,  which  modified  the  Roman  unions,  was 
that  of  Tarquin  the  Proud.  This  king  made  a  general  revision  of 
them,  maintained  those  of  Numa,  and  dissolved  some  of  the  others.1 
It  appears  that  when  these  purgations  had  been  made,  fraud  recom 
menced,  and  that  it  was  necessary  at  long  intervals  to  proceed  to 
new  revisions.  But  it  was  not  until  nearly  four  and  a  half  centuries 
after  Tarquin  the  Proud  that  we  find  another  purgation  of  the  unions. 
It  took  place,  according  to  a  senatus  consultum  reported  -by  Barnaby 
Brisson,2  under  the  consulate  of  L.  Csecilius  Creticus  and  Q.  Mar- 
tius  Rex ;  that  is  to  say,  according  to  the  consular  registers,  sixty- 
six  years  before  the  Christian  era.  We  find  another,  eleven  years 
afterward,  in  the  consulate  of  P.  Lentulus  Spinther  and  Q.  Caeci- 
lius  Metellus  Nepos,  which  is  mentioned  by  Cicero  in  a  letter  to 
Quintus,  his  brother.8 

1Dion.  Halicarn.,  lib.  iv.,  cap.  xliii. 

2  Barnabe  Brisson.  Selectee  antiquitatis  juris,  lib.  i.,  cap.  xiv. 

3  Eodem  die   senatus  -  consultum  factus  est,  ut   sodalitates   decuriatique    dis- 
cederent,  lexque  de  iis  ferretur,  ut  qui  non  discessissent,  ea  poena,  quae  est  de  vi, 
tenerentur.  (Cic.  Epist.  ad  Quint.  Frat.,  lib.  ii.,  epist.  3.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  21$ 

Under  the  emperors  the  reforms  of  the  unions  were  very  numer 
ous.  Caesar  made  one,1  Augustus  another,2  Nero  a  third.3  We  can 
see  by  the  texts  of  the  authors  that  these  three,  like  the  previous 
reforms,  were  undertaken  with  a  view  of  bringing  back  anarchical 
associations  within  the  general  spirit  of  the  Roman  law. 

After  Nero,  we  find  no  reforms  in  the  unions.  Maximin  *  plun 
dered  them,  but  did  not  reform  them.  Zeno  forbade  monopolies 
and  clandestine  coalitions,  but  he  did  not  reform  them.5  There  is 
for  this  change  a  very  simple  reason,  which  is  this : 

Between  Nero  and  Trajan,  nearly  thirty  years,  there  was  a  revo 
lution  in  the  unions,  which  consisted  in  taking  away  from  them  the 
initiative  of  their  formation,  and  subjecting  them  to  a  previous 
authorization.  We  readily  conceive  that  thereafter  there  could  be 
no  more  illegal  unions,  since  none  existed  except  on  condition  of 
having  been  authorized. 

Under  Nero  this  revolution  had  not  taken  place,  since  this  em 
peror  reformed  some  unions.  Under  Trajan  it  had,  since  Pliny 
asked  permission  of  him  to  establish  a  union  of  blacksmiths  in  Ni- 
comedia,  which  that  emperor  refused.6 

All  that  we  find  new  respecting  the  unions  before  Constantine  is, 
toward  the  end  of  the  second  century,  some  edicts  of  Severus, 
authorizing  slaves  to  organize  in  fraternities' with  the  consent  of 
their  masters  ;  but  on  condition  of  having  a  curator,  who  should  act 
for  them,  and  of  not  meeting  oftener  than  once  a  month ; 7  and,  at 

1Cuncta  collegia,  praster  antiquitus  constituta,  distraxit.  (Suetonius  Tranq.,  C. 
Jul.  Caesar,  cap.  xlii.) 

2  ...  Collegia,  proeter  antiqua  et  ligitima,  dissolvit.   (Suetonius  Tranq.,  C.  Jul. 
Caesar.  Octav.,  cap.  xxxii.) 

3  ...  Collegiaque,  quae  contra  leges  instituerant,  dissoluta.   (Corn.  Tacitus,  An- 
nal.,  lib.  xiv.,  cap.  xvii.) 

4  Zosim.  Hist.  Rom.,  lib.  i.,  in  Maximin. 

5  Jubemus,  ne  quis  .  .  .  monopolium  audeat  exercere  ;  neve  quis  illicitis  habitis 
conventionibus,  conjuret  aut  paciscatur,  ut  species  diversorum  corporum  negotia- 
tionis,  non  minoris  quam  inter  se  statuerint,  venundentur.  (Cod.  Just.,  lib.  iv., 
tit.  lix.,  leg.  unica.) 

6  ...  Tu,  domine,  dispice,  an  instituendum  putes  collegium  fabrorum,  duntaxat 
hominum  CL ;  ego  attendam  ne  quis,  nisi  faber,  accipiatur,  neve  jure  concesso  in 
aliud  utatur.  (C.  Plin.  Epist.,  lib.  x.,  epist.  xxxiv.) 

Trajan  refused  in  these  terms  :  Tibi  quidem  secundum  exempla  complurium  in 
mentem  venit  posse  collegium  fabrorum  apud  Nicomedenses  constitui ;  sed  memi- 
nerimus  provinciam  istam  et  praecipue  eas  civitates  ab  ejusmodi  factionibus  esse 
vexatas.  (Ibid.,  epist.  xxxv.) 

7  Sed  permittitur  tenuioribus  stipem  menstruam  conferre,  dum  tamen  semel  in 


2l6  HISTORY     OF     THE 

the  commencement  of  the  third  century,  an  edict  of  Alexander, 
creating  in  certain  unions,  under  the  name  of  defender,  an  officer, 
who  already  existed  in  most  of  them  under  the  name  of  syndic?- 

With  Constantine  commenced,  as  we  have  said,  a  new  era  for  the 
unions.  It  was  then  that  their  bonds  were  tightened ;  that  a  kind  of 
fatality  weighed  upon  those,  who  composed  them,  and  that  they  be 
came  a  necessary  body,  according  to  the  language  of  the  Roman 
laws.2 

At  the  point,  to  which  we  have  now  brought  them,  they  had  a 
strong  and  complete  organization,  formed  by  the  laboring,  indus 
trial,  and  commercial  classes,  for  the  benefit  of  the  government. 
We  must  now  show  them,  constituting  a  normal,  permanent,  and 
hierarchical  association,  sanctioned  by  the  government  for  the  profit 
of  the  laboring,  industrial,  and  commercial  classes,  up  to  the  mo 
ment,  when  causes,  arising  outside  of  their  organization,  nature, 
laws,  and  object,  made  them  parties  to,  and  responsible  for,  all  the 
misfortunes  of  the  empire,  its  disorders,  its  enslavement,  and  its  fall. 

It  was  toward  the  commencement  of  the  fourth  century,  as  we 
have  said,  that  this  change  took  place  in  the  institution  of  the  trades' 
unions,  which  was  truly  an  entire  revolution.  Until  then  the  dif 
ferent  corps  of  craftsmen  had  been  absolutely  under  the  direction 
of,  and  dependent  on,  the  government.  In  Africa  they  were  sub 
ject  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  vicar  of  the  province ; 3  in  Italy,  of  the 
prefect  of  subsistence,  or  of  the  prefect  of  Rome ;  *  in  the  East,  of 
the  proconsul,  or  other  dignitaries  of  the  palace.5  They  were,  as 
to  their  duties,  subject  entirely  to  the  discretion  of  the  emperors. 
The  bakers'  union  was  required  to  furnish  bread  to  the  cities  ;  the 
sailors'  and  wagoners'  to  furnish  transportation  ;  the  masons'  to  fur- 

mense  coeant,  ne  sub  pnetextu  hujusmodi  illicitum  collegium  coeat.  Quod  non 
tantum  in  urbe,  &ed  et  in  Italia  et  in  provinciis,  locum  habere,  Divus  quoque 
Severus  rescripsit.  (Digest.,  lib.  xlvii.,  tit.  xxi.,  leg.  I.,  in  proem.) 

Servos  quoque  licet  in  collegio  tenuiorum  recipi  volentibus  dominis,  ut  cura- 
tores  horum  corporum  sciant,  ne  invito  aut  ignorante  domino  in  collegium  tenui 
orum  reciperent.  (Digest.,  lib.  xlvii.,  tit.  xxi.,  leg.  3,  §  2.) 

1  Lamprid.  in  Alexand. 

2  Et  quoniam  necessarium  corpus  fovendum  est.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii. 
leg.  2.) 

3  See  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiii.,  tit.  v..  leg  36,  namcularh. 

4  See  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiii.,  tit.  v..  leg.  2,  as  to  the  navicularii ;  as  to  the 
unions  generally,  ibid.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  ii.,  leg.  I. 

5 See  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  x.,  tit.  xix.,  leg.  2,  and  tit.  xx.,  leg.  II. 


WORKING    AND     BURGHER     CLASSES.  2I/ 

nish  a  sufficient  number  of  hands  for  the  public  works  ;  in  a  word, 
the  corps  of  craftsmen  were  strictly  instruments  of  the  administra 
tion,  and  in  many  respects  even  the  administration  itself.  But,  at 
least,  the  different  members  of  these  corps  were  perfectly  at  liberty 
to  enter  or  leave  them,  to  pass  from  one  to  the  other  at  will,  and 
in  all  cases  to  keep  their  patrimony  entirely  free,  separate,  and  per 
sonal,  carrying  it  with  them  into  any  union,  with  which  they  might 
affiliate,  and  with  power  to  will,  give  away,  or  sell  it.  This  is 
expressly  stated  in  a  law  of  Constantine  of  the  year  319,  relative  to 
the  bakers'  union.1 

Well  !  forty-five  years  later,  in  364,  the  right,  which  members  of 
the  unions  had  to  sell,  give  away,  or  bequeath  their  patrimony,  like 
other  citizens,  was  taken  from  them  by  a  law  of  Valentinian  II. , 
and  of  Valens,  addressed  to  Symmachus,  prefect  of  Rome.2  This 
law  only  permitted  gifts  to  sons  and  grandsons ;  but  even  this  favor 
was  not  of  long  duration  ;  for  a  new  law  of  Valentinian,  of  the  year 
369,  forbids  absolutely  the  alienation  of  the  patrimony  of  members 
of  the  unions.8 

Thus,  toward  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  the  position  of 
the  members  of  all  the  unions  was  entirely  changed.  The  unions 
held  to  the  government  the  same  relations  ;  but  the  individuals,  who 
composed  them,  contracted  new  and  unheard-of  obligations.  In 
fact,  from  this  epoch  no  member  of  a  union  jcould  leave  it  and  pass 
to  another  under  any  excuse  whatever.  This  is  declared,  for  all  the 
unions  generally,  in  a  novel  of  Valentinian,  of  the  year  445,  which 
ordains  that  all  those,  who  had  quitted  a  union,  should  be  brought 
back  to  it,  although  they  had  become  soldiers,  or  even  clergymen 
up  to  the  grade  of  deacon  ;  *  and  we  find  this  established  for  sailors, 

1  Cunctis  pistoribus  intimari  oportet  quod  si  quis  forte  possessiones  suas  ideo 
putaverit  in  alios  transferendas,  ut  postea  se,  rebus   in  abdito  conlocatis,  minus 
idoneum  adseveret.    (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg  I.) 

2  Prsedia  rustica  vel  urbana,  quae  possident  privato  jure  pistores,  nee  senatorem, 
nee  officialem  comparare  permittimus  (contractu  pari  cum  aliis  non  interdicto), 
quippe  mercantes  ad  venditoris  omcium  vocabantur.  ...  In    donationibus    vero 
filii  excepti  sunt  et  nepotes.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  3.) 

3  ...  Sciat  corpori  obnoxium  vendere  et  alienare  non  posse,  sed  in  sua  causa 
et  pistorum  nomine  ac  jure  residere.   (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  13.) 

4  ...  Oportet  revocari,  sive  etiam  in  clericorum  numero  reperitur,  usque  ad 
diaconis  locum.   (Cod.  Theod.,  leg.  novel,  lib.,  tit.  xxvi.) 

15 


2l8  HISTORY    OF    THE 

especially  in  a  law  of  Valentinian  and  Valens,  of  the  year  365;* 
for  bakers,  by  another  law  of  Valentinian  and  Valens,  of  the  same 
year ; 2  for  butchers,  by  a  law  of  Arcadius  an$  Honorius,  of  the  year 
408 ;  *  for  tailors,  by  a  law  of  Theodosius  and  Valentinian,  of  the 
year  426  ;  *  and  so  of  all  the  other  unions.  From  the  middle,  then, 
of  the  fourth  century,  that  is,  at  least  from  the  year  364,  the  general 
institution  of  the  trades  of  the  empire  became  like  the  orders  in  the 
Church ;  it  stamped  them  with  a  character,  so  that  death  itself  could 
not  loosen  their  bonds ;  and  the  son  or  legatee  of  a  working-man, 
the  former  for  having  taken  his  name,  the  latter  for  having  taken  his 
estate,  were  forced  to  choose  the  same  trade,  and  enter  into  the 
same  fraternity.5 

Perhaps  it  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  successive  encroach 
ments  of  the  trades'  unions  upon  the  persons,  the  families,  and  the 
property  of  those,  who  composed  them.  First,  we  have  seen,  and 
this  is  the  point  of  departure,  every  member  of  a  union  indissolu- 
bly  attached  to  it  till  death,  so  that  neither  flight,  nor  the  mili 
tary,  nor  the  clerical,  character,  nor  anything  else,  could  withdraw 
them  from  it.  Then,  the  children  and  grand-children  were  forced 
to  adopt  the  profession  of  the  father  and  grandfather ;  to  enter  into 
their  union,  and  fulfil  its  duties.  This  is  decreed  by  a  law  of  Valen 
tinian  and  Valens,  of  the  year  364,  relative  to  bakers,6  and  by  a  law 
of  Valentinian,  Theodosius,  and  Arcadius,  of  the  year  389,  relative 
to  butchers.7 

After  the  sons  and  grandsons  came  the  sons-in-law.     They  too 

1  Quisquis  ex  naviculariorum  corpora,  defugiens  solita  munia,  ad  honores  inde- 
bitos  venit,  in  corporis  sui  consortia  revertatur.     (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiii.,  tit.  v., 
leg.  II.) 

2  ...  Ne  illud  quidem  cuiquam  concedi  oportet,  ut  e  officina  ad  aliam  possit 
transitum  facere.   (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  8.) 

3Quicumque  de  suariorum  corpore  originariam  functionem  .  .  .  declinasse  nos- 
cuntur  .  .  .  ad  munus  pristinum  revocentur.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  6.) 

4  Si  quis  de  corpore  gyn£eceiariorum  .  .  .  voluerit  de  suo  collegio  liberari  .  .  . 
universam  generis  sui  prosapiam  .  .  .  obnoxiam  largitionibus  sacris  futuram  esse 
non  dubitet.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  x.,  tit.  xx.,  leg.  16.) 

5  This  absolute  subjection  of  craftsmen  to  the  service  of  their  union  explains 
this  passage  of  Herodotus  on  the  Egyptians,  so  often  thought  strange,  in  which  he 
says  that  sons  were  required  to  follow  the  profession  of  their  fathers:  .  .  .  naif  irapa 
Tarpdf  sieKOficvo^.  (Herodot.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  166. ) 

8  Filios  pistorum  .  .  .  post  emensum  vicesimum  annum  setatis,  paterni  muneris 
necessitatem  subire  cogantur.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  5.) 

7  ...  Consanguineos  quoque  eorum  (suariorum)  .  .  .  functionibus  jubeas  ad- 
jungi,  plenum  et  sequitatis  et  juris  est.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  5.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  219 

were  attached,  they  and  their  posterity,  fatally  to  the  trades'  union 
of  their  fathers-in-law  by  a  law  of  Constantine  II.,  of  the  year  355, 
relative  to  bakers.1  After  the  sons-in-law  came  all  the  descendants 
generally,  who  were  claimed  by  the  union  of  their  ancestors ;  as  is 
provided  by  a  law  of  Valentinian  and  Valens,  of  the  year  365,  rela 
tive  to  bakers.2  After  the  descendants  came  all,  who  were  named 
in  the  will  of  a  member  of  a  union ;  as  was  sanctioned  by  a  law  of 
Valentinian,  Theodosius,  and  Arcadius,  of  the  year  390,  relative  to 
sailors.*  In  fine,  and  this  is  the  extreme  point,  to  which  the  spirit 
of  absorption  was  carried,  the  trades'  unions  imperatively  claimed 
all,  who,  by  whatever  title,  whether  by  gift  or  purchase,  were  found 
in  possession  of  property,  that  had  belonged  to  a  member  of  the 
union,  and  &pro  rata  of  the  property  ;  which  was  established  by  a 
law  of  Constantius,  of  the  year  319,  relative  to  sailors,4  by  a  law  of 
Valentinian  and  Valens,  of  the  year  397,  relative  to  butchers,6  and 
by  a  law  of  Valentinian  and  Valens,  of  the  year  364,  relative  to 
bakers.6 

All  these  persons,  who  were  seized  by  the  trades'  union  —  son, 
grandson,  son-in-law,  descendant,  heir,  possessor  of  property,  which 
had  belonged  to  a  member  of  the  union  — were  forced,  as  we  have 
said,  to  take  a  place  in  the  union.  Whether  they  had  become 
soldiers  by  deceiving  the  military  tribune,  or  clergymen  by  deceiv 
ing  the  bishop,  the  novel  of  Valentinian  II.,  of  the  year  445, 7 
returned  them  to  the  union ;  and  if  they  fled  from  the  duties  of  their 

1Si  quis  pistoris  filiam  suo  conjugio  credideritesse  sociandam,  pistrini  consortio 
teneatur  obnoxius.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  2.) 

2  Prsedia  rustica .  .  .  quse  possident  private  jure  pistores  .  .  .  nee  officialem  com- 
parare  permittimus.  .  .  .  Filii  vero  excepti  sunt  .  .  .  eodem  loco  positis  omnibus 
qui  qualibet  proximitate  junguntur,  quibus  ideo  non  dempsimus  beneficium  largi- 
tatis,  quia  et  paneficii  necessitatem  suscipere  successiones  jure  coguntur.  (Cod. 
Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  3.) 

3  Si,  cum  obierint  (navicularii),  sobolem  non  relinquent,  quique  ille  in  eorum 
facultatibus  qualibet   ratione   successerit,    auctoris  sui   munus   agnoscet.     (Cod. 
Theod.,  lib.  xiii.,  tit.  v.,  leg.  19.) 

4  ...  Si  quis  patrimonium  naviculario  muneri  obnoxium  possidet,  licet  altioris 
sit  dignitatis,  nihil  ei  honoris  privilegia,  in  hac  parte  dumtaxat  opitulentur ;  sed, 
sive  pro  solido,  sive  pro  portione,  huic  muneri  teneantur.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiii., 
tit.  v.,  leg.  3.) 

5  ...  Non  minus  habeatur  obnoxius  quem  possessio  tenet,  quam  quem  successio 
generis  adstringit.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  7.) 

6  ...  Quippe  mercantes  ad  venditoris  officium  vocabuntur,  super  hac  emptione 
P.  F.  annonse  testatiore  deposita.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  3.) 

7  See  note  4,  page  217. 


22O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

condition,  the  governors  of  the  provinces  were  required  to  arrest 
and  send  them  to  Rome,  in  obedience  to  a  law  of  Honorius  and 
Theodosius  of  the  year  39 1,1  and  another  Jaw  of  Honorius  and 
Arcadius  of  the  year  41 2. 2 

This  rigor  of  the  trades'  unions  was  only  relaxed  in  one  single 
case.  When  a  member  of  a  union  had  become  a  priest,  he  could 
break  the  tie,  which  bound  him  to  the  union,  by  surrendering  to  it 
his  patrimony,  according  to  a  law  of  Arcadius  and  Honorius  of  the 
year  408,  relative  to  butchers.3 

All,  but  priests,  had  to  live  and  die  in  the  union,  unless  they  fur 
nished  substitutes,  who  were  acceptable;  that  is  to  say,  equal  in 
fortune.  This  exception  is  provided  for  in  a  law  of  Constantine, 
of  the  year  324,  relative  to  butchers,4  and  in  a  law  of  Valentinian 
and  Valens,  of  the  year  364,  relative  to  bakers.5 

We  have  said  that  this  revolution,  which  entirely  changed  the 
nature  of  the  trades'  unions,  and  made  them  obligatory  instead  of 
voluntary,  took  place  toward  the  commencement  of  the  fourth  cen 
tury.  This  date,  however,  must  not  be  taken  rigorously  ;  because 
moral  revolutions  neither  commence  nor  end  at  precise  moments  of 
history.  All  that  we  can  say  is,  that  the  most  ancient  law  on  this 
point  is  that  of  Constantius,  of  the  year  319,  relative  to  those  in 
possession  of  property,  which  had  belonged  to  members  of  the 
unions. 

At  first  sight,  it  must  appear  to  us  of  modern  times,  accustomed 
to  the  liberty  of  the  professions  and  trades,  that  there  was  a  very 
hard  necessity  in  this  absolute  obligation  to  live  and  die  in  a  trade, 
without  the  possibility  of  quitting  it  or  going  into  another ;  and 
especially,  that  that  was  a  very  subtle  and  odious  tyranny,  which 

1  ...  Cura  autem  rectorum  provinciarum  corporati  urbis  Romse,  qui  in  pere- 
grina  transgress!  sunt,  redire  cogantur;  ut  servire  possint  functionibus,  quas  im- 
posuit  antiqua  solennitas.  (Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xiv.,  leg.  unica.) 

2This  law  was  a  reproduction  of  the  exact  terms  of  the  former.  (Cod.  Theod., 
lib.  xiv.,  tit.  ii.,  leg.  4.) 

3  ...  Eos  etiam  qui  ad  clericatus  se  privilegia  contulerunt,  aut  agnoscere  oportet 
propriam  functionem,  aut  ei  corpori,  quod  declinant,  proprii  patrimonii  facere 
cessionem.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  8.) 

*  .  .  .  De  duobus  alterum  eligant,  aut  retineant  bona  quse  suariae  functioni  de- 
stricta  sunt,  ipsique  suario  teneantur  obsequio,  aut  idoneos  quos  volunt,  nominent. 
(Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  I.) 

6  ...  Quod  si  fuerint  cupidi  dignitatis,  in  tantam  paneficii  substantiam  idoneos 
de  suis  subrogare  cogantur,  quantum  ipsi  exhibuere  pistores.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib. 
xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  4.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  221 

threw  around  the  working,  industrial,  and  commercial  classes  so 
many  snares,  into  which  the  imprudent  might  fall,  either  by  mar 
rying  the  daughters  of  working-men,  or  by  buying  their  property, 
or  by  receiving,  by  testamentary  gift,  ever  so  small  a  part  of  the 
property  of  one  of  them.  Nevertheless,  if  we  go  back  to  their  times, 
places,  and  ideas,  and  seek  for  the  compensations,  which  the  work 
ing  classes  found  in  the  trades'  unions,  we  will  recognize  that  such 
an  institution  was  for  them,  after  all,  a  great  good. 

First,  by  the  side  of  this  necessity  of  remaining  in  an  union  all 
their  lives,  the  working-men  had  a  guarantee  of  never  wanting  their 
wages ;  of  being  subsisted  and  supported  always  and  under  all  cir 
cumstances  out  of  the  social  funds  of  the  union.  Now,  this  seems  to 
us  a  great  advantage  ;  a  position,  in  which  many  working-men  would 
perhaps  to-day  be  most  happy  to  find  themselves.  To  be  entirely 
free  is  without  doubt  much  ;  but  this  freedom  really  profits  only 
those,  who  possess  the  activity,  industry,  and  patience  to  make  it 
available ;  while  there  are  many  people  of  moderate  ability,  and 
these,  are  the  great  majority,  who  derive  no  benefit  from  this  free 
dom  so  precious  to  others ;  who  succumb  in  the  contests  of  competi 
tion,  and  who,  crushed  by  the  necessity  of  taking  care  of  themselves, 
never  succeed  in  doing  so,  and  remain  always  a  prey  to  the  wants 
of  the  day,  and  have  to  seek  by  beggary  —  from  the  poor-house  — 
sometimes  by  crime  instigated  by  misery  —  the  necessary  supple 
ment  to  the  product  of  their  free  labor,  that  they  may  not  die  of 
hunger. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  social  funds  of  the  unions.  These  con 
sisted  of  immense  domains,  inalienable  and  constantly  added  to, 
which  served  for  the  support  of  the  members,  as  the  property  of  the 
monasteries  in  the  middle  ages  served  for  the  support  of  the  monks. 

The  sources  of  the  wealth  of  the  unions  were  various :  the  first 
and  most  important  consisted  in  an  endowment  granted  to  them  by 
the  government.  If  we  suppose  that  there  was  a  similitude  of 
development  and  of  fortune  among  all  the  unions,  we  would  be 
tempted  to  believe  that  this  patrimonial  endowment  was  very  an 
cient;  for  we  find  that  from  the  time  of  Numa  the  state  granted  one 
to  the  priests'  union.1  However,  it  is  certain  that  these  endowments, 

1  Plutarch  relates  in  many  places  in  the  Life  of  Numa,  that  this  king  instituted 
the  college  of  pontiffs,  and  some  other  priests'  unions.  But  he  only  speaks  ex 
pressly  of  the  endowment  made  to  the  temple  of  the  Muses. 


222  HISTORY    OF    THE 

which  are  formally  stated  and  defined  only  in  the  laws  of  the  end 
of  the  fourth  century,  existed  under  the  first  emperors ;  for  we  read 
in  Zosimus  that  Maximin  confiscated  them.1 

The  first  law,  which  expressly  mentions  tfte  endowment  of  the 
Roman  trades'  unions,  is  that  of  Valentinian  and  Valens,  of  the  year 
364,  relative  to  bakers,  which  speaks  of  their  endowment  fund?  A 
second  law  of  the  same  emperors,  of  the  year  369,  says  expressly, 
in  naming  the  endowment,  that  it  had  been  attached  to  the  unions 
since  their  origin;8  and  a  third  law,  of  Arcadius  and  Honorius, 
relative  to  the  same  union,  again  mentions  their  endowment,  speci 
fies  that  it  was  in  lands,  and  adds  that  it  was  originally  granted  as 
a  guarantee  and  encouragement.* 

The  endowment  of  the  unions  consisted  of  real  estate.  If  any 
doubt  could  remain  after  the  law  of  Arcadius  and  Honorius,  which 
we  have  just  cited,  it  would  be  completely  removed  by  a  novel  of 
Theodosius,  of  the  year  440,  relative  to  limeburners,  in  which  their 
endowment  is  expressly  designated  under  the  name  of  cespes ;  that 
is  to  say,  land.5  This  novel  is  elsewhere  fortified  and  explained  by 
a  law  of  Constantius,  of  the  year  359,  in  which  it  is  said  that  the 
endowment  of  the  limeburners  ought  to  produce  annually  a  certain 
quantity  of  wine  and  three  hundred  oxen.6  The  novel  of  Theodosius 
also  mentions  two  other  endowments  of  land,  belonging  to  two  other 
trades'  unions ;  but  the  text,  evidently  altered,7  does  not  permit  us 
to  know  exactly  which  they  were.  Godfrey  thinks  that  one  had 
charge  of  the  aqueducts,  and  the  other  of  the  sewers  of  Rome.8 

The  second  source  of  the  wealth  of  the  trades'  unions  was  the 

1  Zosim.  Hist.  Rom.,  lib.  i.,  in  Maximin. 

8  ...  Officinam  cum  servis,  molis,  fundis  dotalibus  .  .  .  tradat.  (Cod.  Theod., 
lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  7.) 

3  Non  ea  sola  pistrini  sunt,  .  .  .  quae  in  originem  adscripta  corporis  dotis  nomen 
.  .  .  retentant.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  13.) 

4  Pistores  urbis  aeternae,  praetermissa  veteri  consuetudine,  fundis  vel  praediis  ad 
nihilum  redactis,  quae  eorum  corporis  solatia  certa  prsehebant.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib. 
xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  19.) 

5  ...  Cespes  calcarius.   (Cod.  Theod.,  leg.  novellar.  lib.  Theod.  novell.  43.) 

6  ...  Coctoribus  calcis  per  ternas  vehes  singulae  amphorae  vini  praebeantur  .  .  . 
vectuarios  etiam  .  .  .  trecentos  boves  prsecipimus  dari.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv., 
tit.  vi.,  leg.  i.) 

7  ...  Cespes  formensis,  aetrinsis. 

8Cespitem  formensem  existimat  (Gothofredus)  esse  possessionem  per  quam 
formae,  sive  aqueductus  transeunt.  —  Cespitem  aeriensem  (sive  aetrinsem)  cloa- 
cario,  sive  tributo,  quod  cloacarum  purgandarum  causa  infertur.  (Cod.  Theod. ; 
notul.  ad  novell.  Theodos.,  43.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  223 

profits  from  the  state  and  from  individuals.  It  is  certain  that  the 
trades'  unions  undertook  the  works  of  the  government  and  of  indi 
viduals  ;  but  by  a  law  of  Valentinian,  of  the  year  382,  relative  to 
limeburners,  the  works  and  wants  of  the  state  took  precedence  of 
all  others.1 

The  third  source  of  the  wealth  of  the  unions  was  the  inheritances 
of  their  members,  who  died  intestate,  on  which  it  is  proper  to  make 
one  remark.  The  property  of  each  member  of  a  union  was  of  two 
kinds.  First,  the  member  had  his  proportional  part  in  the  endow 
ment  fund  of  the  association ;  and  this  part  the  association  managed. 
He  had  his  share  of  the  income,  but  not  the  capital.  Second,  he 
had  his  patrimony,  his  peculium,  his  personal  fortune.  Of  this 
second  portion  of  the  fortunes  of  their  members,  the  trades'  unions 
indirectly  got  possession  under  the  law  of  Valentinian  II.  and  of 
Valens,  of  the  year  364,  which  we  have  cited;  by  forcing  all,  who 
possessed  them,  to  enter  into  their  association ;  and  they  seized  it 
entirely  by  the  novel  of  Theodosius  and  Valentinian,  of  the  year 
438,  which  declared  every  union  the  universal  legatee  of  its  mem 
bers  dying  intestate.2 

Moreover,  once  in  the  hands  of  the  unions,  their  wealth  never 
passed  from  them.  Their  property  was  inalienable,  as  was  that  of 
every  industrial,  municipal,  or  religious  corporation,  by  virtue  of 
the  principles  we  have  established  in  the  tenth  chapter  of  this  work. 
The  inalienability  of  the  property  of  the  trades'  unions  is  estab 
lished  by  a  great  number  of  laws  ;  among  others,  by  a  law  of  Val 
entinian  and  Valens,  of  the  month  of  June,  365, 3  and  by  a  law  'of 
Valentinian,  Valens,  and  Gratian,  of  April,  372.*  The  property  of 
the  Roman  trades'  unions,  therefore,  was  so  constituted  that  it  could 
always  increase  and  never  diminish. 

Finally,  the  Roman  trades'  unions  were,  in  regard  to  their  social 

1  Quisquis  ex  his  (calcibus)  nihil  accipiat,  nisi  quod  cunctis  moenibus  fabrica- 
tionique  Romans  superfluere  ac  redundare  constiterit.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit. 
vi.,  leg.  4.) 

2  Ut  quisquis  fabricensium  sine  liberis,  vel  legitimo  haerede  decesserit  non  con- 
dito  testamento,  ejus  bona  cujusque  summae  sint.  (Cod.  Theod.,  leg.  novellar. 
lib.  Theodos.  novell.  13.) 

3Patrimonia  naviculariorum,  quse,  quolibet  genere,  in  extraneorum  dominia 
demigrarunt,  in  corporis  sui  jus  proprietatemque  remeent.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib. 
xiii.,  tit.  vi.,  leg.  2.) 

*  Fundi  omnes,  ad  naviculariorum  dominium  pertinentes,  et  ad  aliorum  jura 
translati .  .  .  reddantur  dominis.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiii.,  tit.  vi.,  leg.  6.) 


224  HISTORY    OF    THE 

endowment,  like  so  many  tontines,  in  which  the  last  survivors  pro 
fited  by  the  spoils  of  those,  who  died  first.  It  is  easy  to  conceive 
how  these  endowments,  being  inalienable,  never  diminishing  and 
always  accumulating,  ended  by  acquiring  an  immense  development. 
Thus  the  property  of  the  laboring  and  industrial  unions,  in  Roman 
history,  may  be  compared  with  the  wealth  of  ecclesiastical  corpora 
tions  in  modern  history.  This  property,  accumulating  from  man  to 
man,  from  century  to  century,  increased  prodigiously  in  the  lapse 
of  years.  But  as  certain  religious  orders  were  richer  than  others, 
so  some  of  the  Roman  trades'  unions  eclipsed  their  rivals  by  the 
display  of  their  strength  and  grandeur.  For  example,  it  may  be 
said  that  the  sailors'  union  under  the  empire  was  what  the  order  of 
St.  Benedict  were  in  Christianity,1  and  the  former  has  furnished  as 
many  senators  and  knights  as  the  latter  has  illustrious  abbes,  cardi 
nals  and  popes. 

Notwithstanding  the  appearance  of  excessive  tyranny  in  the  stat 
utes,  relative  to  the  Roman  trades'  unions,  we  can  nevertheless 
easily  conceive  why  the  members  of  the  unions  were  well  satisfied 
with  them.  It  was  always  for  the  ultimate  advantage  of  the  unions 
that  these  rigorous  laws  were  instituted.  Who  profits  by  the  mem 
bers  of  a  fraternity  not  being  allowed  to  quit  it  ?  The  fraternity, 
which  thus  is  always  and  uniformly  recruited  with  skilled  men.  Who 
profits  by  requiring  the  son,  grandson,  all  the  descendants,  to  fol 
low  the  profession  of  their  ancestor?  The  fraternity,  which  is  thus 
composed  of  permanent  families  of  workmen  or  artists,  in  which  the 
traditions  of  industry  or  art  are  perpetuated  from  age  to  age,  and 
which  acquire,  by  the  lapse  of  time,  a  generic  eminence,  of  which 
they  are  proud ;  a  sort  of  dynasty  of  labor,  like  the  Aides,  the 
Etiennes,  and  some  others  in  the  history  of  the  free  industry  of 
modern  times.  Finally,  who  profits  by  the  return  to  the  union  of 
the  estates  of  intestate  members  ?  The  fraternity,  whose  wealth  is 
increased,  and  who  are  thus  enabled  at  the  same  time  to  extend 
their  operations,  ameliorate  the  condition  of  their  members,  and 
provide  for  the  chances  of  the  future. 

1  The  sailors'  and  bakers'  unions  were  the  most  powerful  of  the  empire.  The 
bakers  furnished  many  senators.  (Optio  concessa  est  his,  qui  e  pistoribus  facti 
sunt  senatores.  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  4.)  A  law  of  Valentinian  and 
Valens,  of  the  year  371,  and  another  of  Gratian,  of  the  year  379,  show  that  a 
great  number  of  sailors  were  made  senators  and  knights.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiii., 
tit.  x.,  leg.  14,  15.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  225 

Now,  if  the  result  of  these  rigorous  laws  was  to  the  profit  of  the 
trades'  unions,  was  it  not  an  advantage  to  those,  who  composed 
them  ?  Does  not  the  monk  rejoice  in  the  prosperity  of  the  con 
vent  ?  Well,  just  as  the  best  and  most  active  portion  of  Europe,  in 
the  sixth  century,  pressed  into  the  cloisters,  which,  like  the  Roman 
unions,  they  could  not  leave ;  where  they  lost  their  civil  rights,  and 
could  neither  give,  nor  sell,  nor  bequeath,  nor  receive  by  way  of 
gift  or  legacy;  so,  as  long  as  the  good  times  of  the  trades'  unions 
lasted,  they  did  not  want  proselytes,  who  were  ready  to  give  to 
them  their  own  bodies,  and  the  bodies  of  all  their  posterity. 

This  was,  we  say,  so  long  as  the  good  times  of  the  trades'  unions 
lasted;  for  there  came  a  time,  when  their  prosperity  declined;  when 
their  glory  disappeared  ;  when  it  was  necessary  to  bring  back  their 
fugitive  members  by  force,  as  appears  from  the  laws  of  Honorius 
and  Arcadius,  of  the  year  412,  and  the  novel  of  Theodosius  and 
Valentinian,  of  the  year  445  ;  when,  to  complete  their  reproach, 
it  was  necessary  to  seek  recruits  among  the  Jews  and  Samaritans,  as 
appears  from  the  law  of  Gratian,  Valentinian,  and  Theodosius,  of 
the  year  390.*  But  these  misfortunes  belonged  to  an  order  of  facts, 
foreign,  as  we  have  said,  to  the  nature  and  object  of  the  trades' 
unions,  and  of  which  we  must  make  the  lamentable  recital. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
ANCIENT  TRADES'  UNIONS  —  THEIR  FALL. 

AT  the  commencement  of  the  fourth  century,  the  Roman  trades' 
unions  had  long  been  secretly  laboring  under  a  malady,  which 
was  to  ruin  them  at  a  later  period. 

Generally  it  is  with  peoples  as  with  men,  who  are  not  aware  of 
their  disease  until  its  progress  has  undermined  their  organization. 
It  was  very  nearly  under  the  reign  of  Constantine  that  the  internal 

1  Judaeorum  corpus  ac  Samaritanorum  ad  naviculariam  functionem  non  jure 
vocari  cognoscitur  .  .  .  inopes,  vilibusque  commerciis  occupati  naviculariae  trans- 
lationis  munus  obire  non  debent.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiii.,  tit.  v.,  leg.  18.) 


226  HISTORY    OF    THE 

disease  of  the  trades'  unions  began  to  make  itself  felt  by  all  that 
series  of  coercive  and  tyrannical  laws,  which  we  have  mentioned, 
and  which  prove  that  the  unions  no  longer  attracted,  as  they  once 
did,  the  laboring,  industrial,  and  commercial  "classes;  since  it  was 
necessary  to  strengthen  them  with  recruits  from  without,  by  all  sorts 
of  legislative  contrivances,  and  to  oppose  multiplied  and  arbitrary 
obstacles  to  the  withdrawal  of  those,  who  no  longer  found  any  ad 
vantages  in  the  community  of  the  fraternities.  Now,  more  than  fifty 
reigns  had  passed  by  since  the  first  blow  was  struck  at  the  prosperity 
of  the  unions;  and  their  decay,  always  increasing,  was  the  work  of 
the  emperors,  and  dates,  if  not  from  the  first  years  of  Augustus,  at 
least  from  the  disorganizing  and  destructive  reign  of  Caligula.  The 
causes  of  the  gradual  decay  of  this  great  institution  should  be  studied 
one  by  one,  and  related  separately. 

We  have  already  explained  how  the  unions  were,  properly  speak 
ing,  the  administrative  corps  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The  public 
revenues  were  not  derived,  as  among  modern  peoples,  from  an 
impost  regularly  distributed;  they  consisted,  in  the  greater  and 
better  part,  of  the  rents  of  the  public  domain.  This  domain,  known 
in  the  law  by  the  name  of  reipublica  loca,  was  leased  to  individuals, 
who  paid  an  annual  rent,  generally  in  kind ;  this  rent,  which  was  a 
veritable  feudal  service,  bore,  like  the  feudal  services  of  the  middle 
ages,  the  name  of  canon.  When  it  was  in  grain,  it  was  called 
canon  frumentarius ;  and  so  of  the  rest.1  Now,  it  was  in  the  ware 
houses  of  the  trades'  unions  that  these  rents  in  kind  were  received 
annually.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  butchers'  union  collected 
the  rents  in  hogs  in  Brutium  and  Samnitim.  The  bakers  received 
the  rents  in  grain,  which  the  wagoners  and  sailors'  unions  deposited 
in  the  warehouses  of  the  port  of  Ostia.  The  wine-measurers'  union 
received  the  rents  of  the  vineyards  ;  and,  all  together,  they  took 
care  of,  manipulated,  and  disposed  of  for  consumption,  all  these  raw 
materials,  which  came  crude  into  their  hands. 

Well !  the  unions  were  responsible  for  the  revenues  of  the  empire, 
of  which  they  had  the  administration ;  and  when  the  annual  rents 
of  the  domain  were  insufficient  for  the  consumption,  the  govern 
ment  seized  upon  their  property. 

JDe  canone  frumentario.  (Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  xv.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  22/ 

Here  we  have,  in  two  words,  the  explanation  of  many  things, 
until  now  somewhat  obscure.  Here  we  find  the  reason  for  all  those 
laws,  which  declared  the  property  of  the  unions  inalienable ;  which 
required  the  descendants  of  members  of  a  union  to  remain  in  it  for 
ever;  which  ordained  that  whoever  received  any  portion  of  the 
private  fortune  of  a  member  of  a  trades'  union,  either  by  legacy  or 
purchase,  or  even  as  marriage  dowry,  should  contribute  to  the  ex 
penses  of  the  union,  pro  rata,  for  that  portion.  The  government, 
which  had  need  of  certain  revenues,  thus  accumulated  the  guaran 
tees  it  wanted  in  the  trades'  unions ;  so  that,  if  its  resources  were 
deficient  on  one  hand,  it  was  always  certain  of  finding  them  else 
where. 

Unhappily  those  resources  were,  to  the  detriment  of  the  unions, 
often  deficient,  from  causes  both  natural  and  frequent.  Vessels 
loaded  with  provisions  were  wrecked.  Now,  the  sailors'  union  was 
responsible  for  all  wrecks,  at  least  up  to  the  time  of  Claudius,  who, 
as  related  by  Suetonius,  placed  the  losses  to  account  of  the  govern 
ment.1  Subsequent  laws,  for  three  centuries  —  and  among  others  a 
law  of  Valentinian,  Valens,  and  Gratian,  of  the  year  372,  in  rela 
tion  to  the  sailors'  union  —  prove  that  the  regulation  of  Claudius 
did  not  remain  unrestricted,  and  that  the  republic  only  became 
responsible  for  wrecks  and  losses  by  sea,  when  it  was  clearly  proved 
that  there  was  no  fault  of  the  agents  of  the  company.2 

Again,  sterile  years  doubtless  were  no  more  rare  in  the  times  of 
the  Roman  emperors  than  now.  If  we  refer  to  the  testimony  of 
history,  we  find  that  they  were  even  more  frequent.  That  is  easily 
conceived,  when  we  consider  the  progress  of  agriculture  and  metal 
lurgy  in  two  thousand  years,  and  their  want  of  artificial  means  of 
contending  most  advantageously  against  the  sterility  of  the  times 
and  the  disorder  of  the  seasons.  Thus,  under  Claudius,  there  was 
a  violent  tumult  at  Rome,  caused  by  the  want  of  breadstuffs,  which 
forced  him  to  grant  to  the  sailors'  union  the  indemnity  just  men 
tioned.3  Ammienus  Marcellinus  relates,  in  the  fourteenth  book  of 
his  history,  that  a  frightful  sedition  also  took  place  under  Constan- 
tius  the  Second,  in  the  year  353,  because  of  the  total  want  of  wine  ; 

1  Suet.  Tranquil.,  Tiber.  Claud.,  cap.  xxi. 

2  <2Rd.  Theod.,  lib.  xiii.,  tit.  ix.,  leg.  I. 

3  Suet.  Tranquil.,  Tiber.  Claud.,  cap.  xxi. 


228  HISTORY    OF    THE 

and  it  is  impossible  to  count  the  passages,  in  St.  Ambrose,  Sym- 
machus,  Libanius,  and  even  in  the  laws  of  the  emperors,  in  which 
it  is  related  that  the  magistrates  repeatedly  drgve  off  without  pity 
the  fugitive  slaves  and  beggars,  who  flocked  to  Rome  from  all 
points  of  the  empire,  when  famine  invaded  Italy,  and  surprised  the 
capital  of  the  world  in  the  midst  of  the  ruinous  luxury,  feasts,  and 
fancies  of  her  emperors.1  We  readily  conceive  that,  before  resort 
ing  to  these  terrible  extremes,  the  treasury  of  the  unions  was  first 
exhausted,  and  that  when  senators  had  one  plate  less  at  their  tables, 
the  members  of  the  trades'  unions  did  not  dine  at  all. 

There  was  a  third  cause,  equally  natural  and  not  less  frequent, 
which  was  long  preparing  the  ruin  of  the  trades'  unions —  the  bad 
faith  or  insolvency  of  the  farmers  of  the  domain.  The  unions,  the 
corporati,  were  required  to  have  in  store  each  year  a  sufficient  quan 
tity  of  products ;  but  who  was  to  guarantee  to  them  that  the  pos 
sessors  of  the  public  lands  should  faithfully  perform  the  conditions 
of  their  ancient  leases  ?  If  we  refer  to  the  successive  laws  for  the 
regulation  of  this  matter,  it  appears  that  there  was  no  kind  of  ruse 
or  expedient,  to  which  the  vassals  and  arriere  vassals  of  the  empire 
did  not  resort,  to  avoid  paying  the  annual  rent,  or  to  diminish  the 
amount.  This  became  all  the  more  easy  for  them  to  do,  when  the 
lands  of  the  domain,  at  least  from  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century, 
were  enfeoffed  to  them  in  perpetuity,  as  appears  by  a  law  of  Arca- 
dius  and  Honorius,  of  the  ist  December,  400. 2  Now,  when  three  or 
four  generations  had  rolled  by,  after  the  first  enfeoffment,  it  became 
very  difficult  to  prevent  the  violation  of  its  stipulations  by  the  vas 
sals  for  their  own  profit.  This  they  in  fact  did,  as  shown  by  a  law 
of  Gratian,  Valentinian,  and  Theodosius,  of  the  ist  February,  383, 
by  refusing  to  cultivate  second  quality  lands  included  in  their  grants, 
and  by  reducing,  in  proportion  to  the  lesser  extent  cultivated,  the 
rent  payable  to  the  treasury ; 3  that  is  to  say,  by  thus  subordinating 
the  revenues  of  the  empire  to  the  discretion  of  the  farmers,  who 
had  taken  the  lands  of  the  state  in  vassalage.  The  unions,  thus 
pressed  by  the  exigencies  of  the  government  on  one  side,  and  the 
indolence  or  bad  faith  of  the  farmers  on  the  other,  used  great  sever 
ity  to  collect  the  rents. 

1Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  cap.  xviii.,  lex  uuica. 

aCod.  Theod.,  lib.  x.}  tit.  iii.,  leg.  5.          3Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  x.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  4. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  229 

Plutarch  relates,  in  the  Life  of  Lucullus,  that  after  the  war  with 
Tigranes,  who  had  ravaged  Asia  Minor,  the  Roman  collectors  sold 
at  the  market-place  the  marriageable  daughters  of  the  farmers,  who 
had  not  paid  their  rents  ;  l  and  without  speaking  of  other  passages 
in  the  homilies  of  St.  Basil,  or  in  the  letters  of  Libanius,  which 
bear  witness  to  the  same  severity,  see  the  terrible  recital,  in  St. 
Jerome's  Life  of  Paphnuca,  by  a  poor  woman,  whose  husband  and 
children  had  been  carried  off:  "I  had  a  husband,"  she  said, 
"whom  the  tax-collectors  had  often  hung,  whipped,  tortured,  and 
imprisoned.  We  had  three  sons,  whom  they  have  taken  from  us, 
and  sold  for  the  same  debt.  "  2  If  any  one  should  think  that  there 
must  be  some  exaggeration,  (0)  in  what  these  writers  and  holy  per- 

1  See  Plutarch's  Life  of  Lucullus.  2  See  St.  Jerome's  Life  of  Paphnuca. 

(a)  If  any  one  should  find  it  difficult  to  believe  that  such  things  could  be  done, 
in  the  days  of  St.  Jerome,  in  the  dawn  of  Christianity,  let  him  read  the  testimony 
in  the  pending  impeachment  trial  of  Governor  Holden,  of  North  Carolina  : 

"  Lucien  H.  Murray,  being  duly  sworn,  testified  :  I  live  in  Alamance  County, 
and  am  a  merchant  ;  on  the  27th  of  July  last  I  was  arrested  by  Colonel  Bergen, 
and  carried  to  his  camp.  That  night  he  came  to  my  tent  with  a  light,  touched 
me  on  the  foot,  and  asked,  «  Is  that  you,  Murray  ?  '  I  told  him  it  was.  He  told 
me  to  get  up  and  go  with  him.  I  asked  him  to  wait  until  I  could  put  on  my 
shoes.  He  replied  :  '  No,  you  won't  have  any  use  for  shoes  long.'  After  I  had 
gone  out  with  him,  he  told  me  to  confess,  or  he  would  blow  my  heart  out.  I  said 
I  knew  nothing  to  confess.  Said  he  knew  a  way  to  make  me  tell  ;  carried  me  a 
short  distance,  and  put  a  rope  around  my  neck,  tied  my  hands,  and  threw  the 
rope  over  a  limb.  There  were  four  soldiers  with  him.  He  asked  me  again  to 
confess.  I  said  I  knew  nothing.  He  pulled  me  up,  then  let  me  down,  and  com 
manded  me  to  confess.  I  knew  nothing  to  confess.  He  then  pulled  me  up 
twice  more,  the  third  time  letting  me  stay  until  I  became  unconsciotis,  I  don't 
know  how  long  I  was  kept  up.  When  /  came  to,  I  was  sitting  by  a  tree,  and  the 
men  were  rubbing  me.  He  then  put  the  pistol  to  my  breast,  and  told  me  if  I  did 
not  confess  he  would  kill  me.  I  again  told  him  I  knew  nothing.  He  then  said 
to  the  sergeant,  '  Hang  him  to  that  limb,  and  let  him  hang  until  8  in  the  morn 
ing;  then  bury  him  under  this  tree?  I  said,  'If  you  hang  me  until  I  am  dead, 
your  time  will  come  in  three  days,  if  not  before.'  After  this  I  was  ordered  back 
to  camp,  and  told  not  to  speak  of  this,  and  if  I  did  not  confess  by  10  o'clock 
to-morrow  night  I  would  be  hung.  I  was  finally  released  by  Judge  Brooks,  of 
the  United  States  District  Court,  and  no  charge  was  made  against  me. 

"  William  Patton  being  sworn,  testified  :  I  was  arrested  by  Bergen  in  July  last  ; 
he  asked  me  about  the  murder  of  Outlaw  ;  I  told  him  I  knew  nothing  about  it  ; 
he  then  put  a  pistol  to  my  breast,  and  said  if  I  did  not  tell  all  about  it  he  would 


r*  nv 

It  0 


LA  CH-7T  I- 


.  L  . 


23O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

sons  said,  he  can  verify  the  scrupulous  exactness  of  their  testimony 
by  reference  to  two  official  acts  on  the  subject ;  viz.,  a  law  of  Theo- 

blow  my  brains  out ;  I  again  said  I  knew  nothing  about  it ;  he  then  called  for  a 
rope,  saying  he  would  hang  me  if  I  did  not  tell ;  a  rope  was  handed  him  by  a 
fioldier ;  he  put  it  around  my  neck,  and,  followed  by  a  guard,  carried  me  out  to 
the  woods,  threw  the  rope  over  a  limb,  and  pulled  me  up,  not  quite  off  the 
ground,  but  enough  to  choke  me  ;  let  me  down,  and  told  me  to  confess  ;  pulled 
me  up  again,  and  went  through  the  same  process  three  times,  after  which  he 
started  back  to  camp  with  me  ;  on  the  way  I  fainted  ;  when  I  came  to,  he  and  the 
guard  were  standing  around  me  cursing  violently  ;  Bergen  then  told  the  men  to 
take  me  to  camp,  and  said  he  would  make  me  tell  all  about  it ;  he  took  the  rope 
off  my  neck,  tied  it  around  my  wrists,  tied  me  to  a  box  nearby,  and  left  me  there 
all  night. 

"  It  must  be  remembered  that  similar  outrages  as  those  detailed  above  were 
inflicted  upon  others,  and  that  they  were  all,  after  an  imprisonment  of  five  weeks, 
released  upon  writs  of  habeas  corpus  by  a  Federal  judge,  without  any  charge 
whatever  being  preferred  against  them. 

"  Among  the  witnesses  examined  yesterday  was  the  Hon.  John  Kerr,  of  Cas- 
well  County.  Judge  Kerr  is  decidedly  one  of  the  ablest  men  in  this  State,  and 
one  of  the  most  eloquent  orators  in  America.  He  has  always  been  very  promi 
nent  in  the  politics  of  this  State.  Was  a  member  of  the  United  States  Congress 
twenty  years  ago ;  was  the  Whig  candidate  for  Governor  in  1852,  and  afterward 
wore  the  judicial  ermine  with  honor  to  the  judiciary.  Yet  this  gentleman  was 
one  of  Holden's  many  victims ;  was  torn  from  his  family,  closely  incarcerated  by 
a  drunken  soldiery  or  rabble  for  five  weeks,  insulted  day  after  day,  threatened 
with  death,  and  finally  released  with  not  a  single  charge  preferred  against  him. 
The  probate  judge  of  Caswell  County  testified  that  Kirk  took  forcible  possession 
of  his  office,  scattered,  lost,  and  destroyed  bushels  of  his  official  papers  and 
records,  and  a  letter  from  Holden  was  read  justifying  Kirk's  conduct.  It  has 
been  also  proven  that  Kirk  told  his  prisoners  that  his  orders  were,  '  if  an  attempt 
at  rescue  was  made,  to  shoot  down  the  prisoners,  burn  up  the  town,  and  put  to 
death  the  women  and  children.'  " 

Now,  these  events  occurred  in  the  iQth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  only  a 
few  short  months  ago;  and  the  purpose  of  this  "gentle  persuasion,"  was  to 
continue  Governor  Holden  in  power,  under  the  assumed  name  of  Republi 
canism,  that  he  and  those  acting  with  him  might  collect  taxes,  ad  libitum, 
from  the  people  of  North  Carolina.  So  the  world,  after  all,  has  not  changed 
much  in  nineteen  centuries.  See  the  testimony  of  the  Rev.  J.  B.  Smith,  before 
the  committee  of  investigation  on  Southern  outrages,  February  17,  1871.  The 
Rev.  Mr.  Smith  is  a  Northern  man,  who  went  to  North  Carolina,  at  the  suggestion 
of  General  O.  O.  Howard,  to  establish  a  normal  school  for  the  education  of  ne 
groes.  He  says : 

"  I  asked  a  leading  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  North  Caro- 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  23! 

dosius  the  Great,  dated  at  Milan,  in  March,  39 1,1  and  a  novel  of 
Valentinian  the  Second,  dated  at  Rome,  February,  45 i.2 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  wrecks,  in  spite  of  the  famine  of  barren 
years,  in  spite  of  the  poverty  or  bad  faith  of  the  farmers,  the  Roman 
unions  would  perhaps  have  been  industrious  and  rich  enough  to 
supply  all  the  wants  of  the  empire,  without  serious  injury  to  their 
own  interests,  if  a  new  cause,  more  powerful  than  all  the  others,  had 
not  fatally  hurried  on  their  ruin.  That  cause  was  the  unbounded 
luxury  of  the  emperors. 

We  moderns  have  no  idea  of  the  incredible  extravagance  of  these 
masters  of  the  world.  They  had  the  wealth  of  Europe,  Asia  and 
Africa  in  their  hands,  and  certainly  they  made  that  fact  well  known. 
We  have  had  in  France  some  royal  spendthrifts  —  for  example, 
Francis  I.  and  Louis  XIV.  It  is  doubtful  whether  Caligula  would 
have  found  the  first  enough  of  a  good  liver  to  take  part  in  his  gay- 
eties,  and  the  whole  fortune  of  the  latter  would  not  have  sufficed  to 
pay  the  board  and  wages  of  Nero's  lackeys. 

It  is  truly  a  "History  of  a  Thousand  and  One  Nights, ' '  that  of  the 
first  Roman  emperors  —  for  example,  Caligula,  Claudius,  and  Nero. 
On  a  banter  made  to  him,  Caligula  constructed  a  bridge  over  the  sea 
from  the  port  of  Baia  to  the  mole  of  Puteoli.  This  bridge  was  3,600 
paces  long ;  it  was  paved,  and  had  the  width  of  the  Appian  Way.5 
He,  with  all  his  courtiers,  made  on  it  a  triumphal  procession  for 
two  successive  days.  The  first  day  he  rode  a  horse  caparisoned 

lina,  knowing  him  to  be  a  man  of  principle,  '  How  could  you  vote  for  the  Shoff- 
ner  bill,  to  empower  the  Governor  of  the  State  to  declare  at  will  a  county  to  be 
in  insurrection,  if  none  existed  ?  '  —  the  word  insurrection  being  a  well-defined 
term.  He  said,  'Oh!  we  passed  such  a  law,  but  it  will  never  be  executed.' 
Said  I,  '  Then  why  did  you  pass  it  ?  '  *  Now,  doctor,'  said  he,  *  it  is  necessary  to 
hold  this  State  as  Republican  for  three  or  four  years  longer,  and  the  passage  of 
that  bill  was  necessary  to  enable  us  to  hold  it.'" 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Smith  also  testified  that,  in  conversation  with  him,  Governor 
Holden  said  that,  "  in  his  opinion,  General  Grant  would  hold  the  government  of 
the  United  States,  no  matter  what  the  election  was  in  1872;  that  he  (Governor 
Holden)  desired  him  to  be  emperor,  and  his  son  to  succeed  him  as  emperor." 
Governor  Holden  also  told  Mr.  Smith,  that  he,  Holden,  had  80,000  negroes  of 
the  loyal  leagues,  whom  he  could  and  would  arm  to  accomplish  his  wishes. 

^od.  Theod.,  lib.  iii.,  tit.  iii.,  lex  unica. 

*Cod.  Theod.,  leg.  novel.  D.  Valentin.,  tit.  xi. 

3  Suet.  Tranquil.,  C.  Ccesar  Caligula,  cap.  xxvi. 


232  HISTORY    OF    THE 

with  magnificent  housings,  himself  clothed  in  an  imperial  robe  of 
cloth  of  gold,  and  armed  cap-a-pie.  His  courtiers  came  after  him, 
clothed  in  like  apparel.  The  second  day  he  appeared  in  the  dress 
of  a  charioteer  of  the  circus,  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  magnificent 
horses,  followed  by  the  equipages  of  his  courtiers  and  all  the  prae 
torian  guard.  This  bridge  was  constructed  for  these  two  prome 
nades  only,  and  the  imperial  caprice  let  it  fall  to  ruins  as  rapidly  as 
it  had  been  constructed.  Claudius,  curious  to  see  the  bottom  of  Lake 
Fucinus,  to  draw  the  water  off  had  a  canal  made  across  a  mountain, 
3,000  paces  long.1  This  fancy  cost  him  the  board  and  wages  of 
30,000  workmen  for  eleven  years.  But  Nero  left  far  behind  all 
these  essays  of  power.  Never  did  man  show  like  profusion.  When 
he  played  in  the  evening,  after  supper,  his  wager  was  never  less 
than  400,000  sesterces.2  If  he  wished  to  see  a  naval  battle,  he  had 
a  lake  dug,  large  and  deep  enough  for  the  manoeuvres  of  two  fleets.3 
Always  clothed  with  silks  and  stuffs  of  the  Orient,  he  never  wore 
the  same  dress  twice.4  When  he  fished  in  his  ponds,  he  had  a 
line  of  purple  and  gold  thread.5  One  year,  during  the  feasts  he 
gave  to  his  good  city  of  Rome,  in  his  character  of  a  great  artist, 
the  idea  occurred  to  him  to  give  a  daily  lottery  to  the  people.  As 
long  as  the  feasts  lasted,  he  distributed  a  thousand  tickets  daily. 
The  prizes  were  warehouses  filled  with  grain,  complete  wardrobes, 
collections  of  all  rare  birds,  gold,  silver,  pearls,  diamonds,  pic 
tures,  slaves,  horses,  and  domesticated  wild  beasts.  On  the  last  day, 
the  prizes  were  ships,  cities,  and  kingdoms.6  Nero  had  a  monkey, 
which  he  dearly  loved.  He  assigned  to  it  a  palace  in  Rome,  a 
castle  and  lands  in  the  country,  and  regulated  its  housekeeping  on 
an  analogous  footing.7  >^ 

When  he  went  to  contend  for  the  prize  in  the  races  of  the  Olym 
pic  games,  Nero  set  out  with  his  ordinary  equipage ;  a  train  of  a 
thousand  chariots.  The  2,000  mules,  that  drew  him  and  his  train, 
were  shod  with  silver,  and  his  three  or  four  thousand  coachmen  and 
lackeys  were  clothed  with  the  finest  stuffs  of  Italy.  A  great  multi 
tude  of  Moorish  couriers  preceded  him,  clothed  "a  V  Africaine,  with 

1  Sueton.  Tranquil.,  C.  Caesar  Caligula,  cap.  xxvi. 

1  Sueton.,  Nero  Claud.  Caesar.,  cap.  xxiii.  » Ibid.,  cap.  ix. 

4  Ibid.,  cap.  xxii.  5  Ibid.,  cap.  xxii. 

«  Ibid.,  cap.  ix.  'Ibid.,  cap.  xxiii. 


tit 

1 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  233 

silk  scarfs,  collars,  and  bracelets.  It  was  with  this,  his  usual  equip 
age,  that  he  came  to  the  Olympic  games.1  He  carried  off  the  prize, 
although  he  was  thrown  twice,2  and  afterward  he  returned  to  Rome 
in  his  racing  chariot,  drawn  by  ten  white  horses.  On  his  return,  he 
granted  to  the  cities  of  Naples,  Antium,  and  Alba  the  h^nor  of  a 
visit  ;  he  came  clothed  with  a  cloak  of  purple  strewn  with  golden 
stars  ;  and  as  conqueror  in  the  Hieronic  games,  he  entered  Syracuse 
by  a  great  breach  in  the  walls.3  Arrived  at  the  gates  of  Rome,  he 
caused  to  be  thrown  down  an  arcade  of  the  grand  circus,  and  made 
a  magnificent  road  across  the  Velabrum  and  the  Forum  to  the  tem 
ple  of  Apollo  on  Mount  Palatine.  The  road  was  covered  with 
saffron  powder  ;  victims  were  immolated  on  both  sides  during  his 
progress  ;  and  to  the  right  and  left,  for  his  retinue  and  the  people, 
there  were  endless  tables  covered  with  all  sorts  of  birds  and  pastry, 
and  crowned  with  bows  of  ribbons.*  ^ 

Alas  !  it  was  the  trades'  unions,  which  in  great  part  paid  for 
these  feasts,  this  profusion,  these  follies.  They  paid  for  the  em 
perors'  mistresses,  eunuchs,  minions,  lackeys,  their  lions  and  pan 
thers,  their  parrots,  and  their  monkeys.  And  if  we  bear  in 
mind  that,  between  Augustus  and  Constantine,  there  were  fifty-two 
emperors  :  that  is,  nearly  fifty-two  spendthrifts  ;  and  that  among 
them  one,  Heliogabalus,  dying  at  eighteen  years,  spent  in  one 
day,  perhaps  more  than  all  the  others,  in  paving  the  court  of  his 
palace  with  all  the  diamonds,  all  the  emeralds,  all  the  precious 
stones  of  Italy,  it  is  easy  to  account  for  the  exhaustion  of  the  em 
pire  in  the  fourth  century,  and  for  the  tyrannical  laws  against  the 
trades'  unions,  which  in  the  end  had  to  provide  for  the  people  and 
the  government  at  the  same  time.  This  explains  how  these  tyrants, 
these  fools,  these  ambitious  men,  who  passed  away  so  quickly,  car 
ried  off,  each,  some  portion  of  the  wealth  of  the  world  ;  how  the 
most  frightful  vexations  were  resorted  to  to  raise  money  ;  how  all 
the  statues  of  the  gods,  which  were  of  gold,  and  even  the  penates 
of  Rome,  were  melted  down  by  Nero  ;  5  how  the  ancient  subsidies 
paid  by  the  state  to  the  priests  and  vestals  were  suppressed  ;  how, 
in  fine,  to  the  great  scandal  of  idolatrous  devotees,  the  immense 


Nero  Claud.  Caesar,  cap.  xxiii.  2Ibid.,  cap.  xvii. 

3  Ibid.,  cap.  xix.  *  Ibid.,  c.  xix. 

6  Ibid.,  cap.  xxvi. 

16 


r  -  \  i 


atU  W-IM  ««vt.  *|  jSkV^Ovvt 

UA^ 

.r  L 
.•„  ^  »• 


234  HISTORY    OF    THE 

property  of  the  pagan  clergy  was  confiscated  and  sold  throughout 
the  empire,  for  the  benefit  of  the  public  treasury ;  which  was  the 
subject  of  the  doleful  epistles  of  the  prefect  ^ymmachus  to  the  Em 
peror  Valentinian  the  Second  ! 

From  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  the  Roman  trades'  unions 
were  completely  disorganized.  All  their  members  sought  to  escape, 
by  flight  or  voluntary  exile,  the  ruinous  burdens  that  weighed  them 
down.  We  have  cited  the  two  laws  of  the  years  412  and  445,  which 
required  the  governors  of  provinces  to  seize  and  send  back  to  Rome 
the  fugitive  members  of  the  unions.  But  when  institutions  can  only 
be  maintained  by  such  violence,  they  are  truly  dead.  The  trades' 
union,  then,  fell  piece  by  piece,  with  the  empire  ;  or  at  least  they 
detached  themselves  from  Rome  and  Constantinople,  which  were 
successively  their  centre  of  administration.  The  feeble  unions  dis 
appeared  altogether  ;  the  rich  ones  continued  to  exist  independ 
ently.  Of  these  were  the  bakers'  and  sailors'  unions.  The  frag 
ments  of  the  latter,  in  all  the  ports  of  the  Mediterranean  and  of  the 
ocean,  became  the  nucleus  of  mercantile  associations.  Some  of 
their  counting-houses,  established  on  great  rivers,  became  the  found 
ation  of  cities  since  become  celebrated.  The  commune  of  Paris, 
called  in  the  charters  la  marchandise  de  I'eau,  originated  from  a 
Roman  counting-house  established  in  the  city.1 

1  This  clearly  appears  from  the  history  of  the  primitive  commerce  of  Paris,  and 
from  the  following  inscription  found  in  the  excavations  made  in  1711,  under  the 
choir  of  Notre  Dame  : 

Tiberio  Caesare 

Aug.  Jovi  optimo 

Maximo  Monumentum 

NAUTVE  PARISIACI 

Publice   posuerunt. 

See  dissertation  of  M.  le  Roi  on  the  origin  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  in  Felibien's 
History  of  Paris. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  235 

CHAPTER    XV. 

BEGGARS    AND    HOSPITALS. 

WE  have  already  seen  that  slaves,  once  set  free,  divide  into  two 
classes.     Some  accept  labor,   and  live  at  their  own  cost. 
Others  reject  labor,  and  live  at  the  cost  of  others.     The  former 
constitute  the  trades'  unions,   whose  history  we  have  just  given. 
The  latter  produce  pauperism,  of  which  we  will  present  a  picture. 

Beggars  were  not  a  social  element  cotemporaneous  with  the  first 
formation  of  peoples.  Pauperism  was  only  introduced  as  a  conse 
quence  of  the  emancipation  of  slaves,  and  everything  concurs  to 
establish  that  this  emancipation  was  very  recent.  We  find  the  poor 
mentioned  in  the  primitive  poets,  as  Moses,  Homer,  and  Hesiod ; 
but  in  those  early  times  they  were  very  few  in  number.  In  fact,  as 
long  as  slavery  existed,  whether  among  the  ancients  or  the  moderns, 
pauperism  could  not  make  much  progress  ;  because  all  being  either 
masters  or  slaves,  the  masters  had  some  fortune,  and  the  slaves  had 
masters,  who  naturally  supplied  all  their  wants  during  life.  It  was 
only  in  proportion  to  the  emancipation  of  slaves  that  small  pro 
prietors,  or  working-men  without  capital,  or  laborers  subject  to  all 
the  chances  of  sickness,  began  to  exist ;  and  these  small  proprietors, 
working-men  and  laborers,  at  the  first  serious  difficulty,  at  the  first 
violent  crisis,  at  the  first  grievous  derangement  of  health,  especially 
if  they  had  a  numerous  family  to  support,  found  themselves  in 
misery,  and  were  reduced  to  pauperism. 

Thus  we  see  paupers  increasing  among  the  ancients  in  proportion 
to  the  multiplication  of  freedmen.  As,  however,  the  emancipa 
tions  of  slaves  were  not  done  systematically  and  in  mass,  but  indi 
vidually,  according  to  the  good  will  of  the  masters,  and  the  good 
conduct  of  the  slaves,  there  was  at  the  commencement  of  the  Chris 
tian  era  a  very  limited  number  of  paupers ;  so  few  that  there  was  no 
establishment  of  public  charity.  It  was  only  in  the  cities  that  beg 
gars  were  to  be  found ;  for  the  reason,  that  there  the  freedmen  most 
did  congregate.  They  were  to  be  seen  every  morning  collected 
around  the  temples,  carrying  in  their  hands  small  images  of  the 


236  HISTORY    OF    THE 

gods,  and  asking  alms  from  the  good  pagan  souls.  Among  them 
were  the  priests  of  Cybele,  who,  in  the  pagan  clergy,  or,  to  speak 
more  historically,  in  the  college  of  pritsts,  constituted  a  congrega 
tion  of  religious  mendicants.  Minutius  Felix  mentions  them  in 
his  book  entitled  Octavius.1  Tertullian,  in  his  Apology,  reproaches 
them  for  the  effrontery,  with  which  they  prowled  around  the  hostel- 
ries ;  2  and  Juvenal,  who  is  very  reliable  in  these  matters,  represents 
them  as  lazy,  and  lying  under  the  tables  of  the  lowest  pot-houses, 
among  ruffians,  sailors,  thieves,  and  fugitive  slaves,  butcher-boys, 
and  coffin-makers  for  the  funeral  pomps  of  Rome.3 

Things  remained  in  this  condition,  that  is  to  say,  the  poor,  still 
few  in  numbers,  had  no  hospital,  in  which  to  take  refuge,  in  the  first 
centuries  of  the  Christian  era.4  The  Christians  indeed  multiplied 
alms,  and  fed  the  needy  ;  but  they  were  not  yet  masters ;  they  were 
still  in  the  minority;  they  could  not  act  publicly,  collectively, 
legally;  but  only  individually,  and  separately,  each  for  himself.  On 
their  part,  the  pagan  clergy  —  who  had  immense  territorial  wealth, 
derived,  first,  from  the  perpetual  endowments  paid  by  the  public 
treasury,  the  legal  institution  of  which  goes  back  from  the  Roman 
empire  to  Numa,  and,  secondly,  from  numberless  inheritances  and 
legacies  —  never  conceived  the  idea  of  organizing  any  system  of 
public  charity ;  and  when,  toward  the  end  of  the  fourth  century, 
Symmachus  addressed  to  Valentinian  II.,  Theodosius,  and  Arca- 
dius  his  two  celebrated  letters  on  paganism,  which  was  falling  to 
ruins,5  in  which  he  complains  so  bitterly  of  the  confiscation  by  the 
emperors  of  the  property  of  the  priests  and  vestals,  St.  Ambrose, 
in  the  first  of  his  two  replies  to  Symmachus,  addressed  to  Valentin 
ian  II.,  contrasts  the  avarice  of  the  pagan  clergy,  who  kept  their 
riches  for  themselves,  with  the  self-denial  of  the  Christian  church, 
which,  said  St.  Ambrose,  possessed  nothing  of  its  own  but  its  faith, 
and  whose  property  was  the  property  of  the  poor.6 

Nevertheless  it  is  true,  that  although  the  number  of  permanent 

1  Minuc.  Felic.  Octavius,  chap.  24.     See  also  Tertullian,  Apologet.,  chap.  42. 
1  Tertul.  Apologet.,  cap.  xiii.  8  Juvenal,  Satir.  viii.,  v.  173-175. 

4  There  is  no  example  in  all  antiquity  of  the  establishment  of  a  place  of  refuge 
for  the  poor.     Thucydides  mentions  in  his  History  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  a 
kind  of  hospital  built  near  the  temple  of  Juno,  at  Megara ;  but  this  hospital, 
although  the  beds  were  sacred  to  the  goddess,  was  nothing  more  than  a  tavern. 
(Thucydides,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  Ixviii.) 

5  Symmach.  Epistol.,  lib.  x.,  epist.  liv. 

6  S.  Ambros.  Epistol.  ii.,  contra  Symmachum. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  237 

poor,  of  professional  beggars,  was  still  very  inconsiderable  from  the 
first  to  the  third  century  of  the  Christian  era,  there  came  terrible 
times,  when  this  number  was  frightfully  increased.  It  was  in  the 
years  of  famine,  when  the  crops  failed  in  Sicily  or  in  Africa,  and 
when  the  two  unions  of  the  sailors  and  bakers,  who  had  charge,  the 
first  of  the  transportation  of  the  breadstuffs  of  the  empire,  the 
second  of  the  general  management  of  the  flour  and  the  distribution 
of  bread,  were  brought  to  a  standstill,  that  those  horrible  famines 
occurred,  from  which  the  administrative  organization  of  modern 
times  preserves  the  peoples  of  to-day.  Then  all  the  slaves  of  Italy, 
who  were  no  longer  fed  by  their  masters,  were  seen  hastening  to 
Rome  to  ask  for  bread.  But  as  this  increase  of  population  was  not 
long  in  bringing  famine  on  Rome  herself,  they  expelled  from  the 
city,  on  a  given  day,  all  these  parasitical  inhabitants,  who  went  to 
die  where  they  could.  This  was  the  habitual  mode  of  proceeding 
of  the  administrators  of  the  republic  in  times  of  crises  :  and  Sym- 
machus,  who  was  prefect  of  Rome,  about  the  year  383,  wrote  as 
follows:  "  We  fear  a  total  want  of  food,  even  after  having  driven 
off  all  the  foreign  population,  who  have  taken  refuge  in  Rome,  and 
whom  the  city  feeds."  l  (a) 

On  their  part,  the  Christians  protested  loudly  against  this  cruelty 
of  the  burghers  of  Rome,  who  refused  to  share  their  food  with  the 
refugees.  St.  Ambrose,  who  mentions  these  expulsions  in  many 
places  of  his  works,  strongly  denounced  this  want  of  feeling.  He 
said  :  "  Those,  who  drive  strangers  from  Rome,  cannot  be  justified. 
It  is  acting  inhumanly  to  repel  any  one  at  the  moment  he  most 
needs  succor.  Animals  do  not  drive  off  animals  —  man  drives  away 
man."2  Sometimes  the  pagans  themselves  have  protested  loudly 
against  the  expulsion  of  poor  strangers,  when  famine  menaced  the 
cities.3 

Finally,  it  results  from  many  writings  of  the  third  and  fourth  cen 
tury,  that,  as  soon  as  the  charity  of  the  Christians  became  well 
known,  the  poor  crowded  round  the  churches.  At  Rome  they 
gathered  around  the  Church  of  the  Apostles  in  the  Vatican.  There 

1  Symmach.  Epistol.,  lib.  ii.,  epist.  7. 

(«)  We  find  analogous  instances  in  more  modern  history;  for  example,  the 
treatment  of  the  Irish  by  Cromwell,  and  the  banishment  from  their  homes,  by 
General  Sherman,  of  the  women  of  Roswell  Factory  and  Atlanta.  '/ 

2  D.  Ambros.  de  offic.  ministr.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xvii. 
8  Cicero  de  offic.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xi.,  §  47. 


238  HISTORY    OF    THE 

alms  were  distributed  to  them  daily,  as  we  see  in  Ammienus  Mar- 
cellinus  l  among  others,  and  from  the  poem  of  Prudentius  against 
Symmachus.2  It  appears  that  all  kinds  of  fraud  were  practised  by 
these  vagabonds  to  impose  upon  the  compassion  of  the  bishops. 
St.  Ambrose,  in  the  second  book  of  his  treatise  on  the  duties  of 
ministers,3  thus  expresses  himself  on  this  subject:  "There  must  be 
some  limit  to  liberality,  that  it  may  not  be  useless.  Priests  princi 
pally  ought  to  use  circumspection  in  this  regard,  that  they  may  pro 
portion  the  alms  to  the  justice,  and  not  to  the  urgency,  of  their  sup 
plications.  Never  was  anything  like  the  avidity  of  the  beggars. 
Strong  men,  strolling  about  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  vagabondizing, 
seek  to  absorb  the  aid  due  to  the  truly  poor.  Some  feign  to  have 
debts.  Let  this  be  strictly  examined  into.  Others  pretend  to  have 
been  robbed.  Let  exact  information  be  had  as  to  these  persons, 
etc.,  etc."  The  scandal,  caused  by  these  false  beggars  and  their 
frauds,  went  so  far  that  the  Emperor  Valentinian  II.  made  a  law, 
dated  at  Padua,  ist  July,  382,  to  expel  from  Rome  all  those,  who 
were  not  truly  paupers  incapable  of  gaining  a  living.*  (a} 

This  law  of  Valentinian  is  very  curious,  in  that  it  contains  certain 
and  valuable  data  on  the  state  of  pauperism  in  Italy,  toward  the 
end  of  the  fourth  century.  Thus,  we  see  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
beggars,  who  flocked  to  Rome,  were  either  fugitive  slaves,  or  serfs 
whom  agriculture  could  not  support.5  They  rushed  to  Rome,  which 
was  then  the  greatest  city  of  the  world,  and  in  which  they  could 
more  easily  than  anywhere  else  escape  the  pursuit  of  their  masters. 
Valentinian  exhorts  the  inhabitants  of  Rome  to  point  out  these  beg 
gars,  and  orders  that  it  shall  be  carefully  ascertained  whether  they 
were  able-bodied.  He  adjudged  the  slaves  to  those,  who  informed 
upon  them ;  and  as  to  the  serfs  of  the  glebe,  he  gave  them  also,  and 
by  the  same  title,  to  those,  who  discovered  them ;  saving  to  their 

1  Amm.  Marcel.,  lib.  xxvii.,  cap.  iii.,  $  5. 

2  Prudent,  contra  Symmach.,  lib.  i.,  v.  581-583. 

3  D.  Ambros.  de  offic.  ministr.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xvi. 

4  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  xviii.,  leg.  I. 

(a]  We  have  modern  instances  of  this  in  all  the  Southern  cities;  and  espe 
cially  in  Washington,  where  the  control  of  all  political  power,  given  to  fraudulent 
beggars,  has  produced  a  wonderful  political  phenomenon  for  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury;  viz.,  nothing  less  than  a  voluntary  surrender  by  the  citizens  of  Washington 
and  Georgetown  of  their  commune,  or  right  of  local  self-government.  See  note 
(a)  to  chapter  vii. 

5  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  xviii.,  leg.  I. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  239 

seignior  recourse  against  those,  who  had  counselled  or  facilitated 
their  flight.1  Justinian  reproduced,  in  his  eightieth  novel,  the  law  of 
Valentinian  in  very  nearly  the  same  terms,  but  with  this  difference, 
that  he  condemned  all  able-bodied  beggars  to  the  public  works.2 

All  this  great  increase  of  beggars  took  place  from  the  third  to  the 
fifth  century.  It  seems  that  they  took  literally  the  character  given 
to  the  Christians  by  St.  Jerome,  when  he  called  them,  in  his  twenty- 
sixth  epistle  to  Pammachius,  the  subordinates  and  candidates  of  the 
poor.3  The  dominant  historic  and  social  fact,  during  the  fourth 
century,  is  this  vast  increase  of  proletaries  :  and,  after  numerous  fruit 
less  experiments,  the  creation  and  organization  of  a  great  system 
of  public  charity,  to  provide  for  the  wants  of  the  poor,  and  take 
care  of  the  old,  the  sick,  and  abandoned  infants.  This  provident 
system,  which  has  only  been  developed  in  the  lapse  of  centuries, 
and  which  is  still  the  only  palliative  put  in  use  by  modern  societies, 
to  cure,  or  rather  to  cover  up,  the  sores  of  civilization,  was  created 
by  Christianity. 

Seeing  that  antiquity  in  four  thousand  years  did  not  emancipate 
slaves  enough  to  produce  any  considerable  mass  of  proletaries,  and 
that  in  four  centuries  Christianity  had  multiplied  them  so,  that  regu 
lar  society  was  encumbered  and  disquieted  by  them,  we  might  be 
tempted  to  believe  that  Christianity  had  declared  a  war  of  extermina 
tion  against  slavery,  and  that,  contrary  to  what  we  have  said  above, 
it  proceeded  by  great  trials  of  systematic  emancipation.  This,  how 
ever,  would  be  an  error.  In  general,  Christianity  did  not  touch 
the  positive  laws  of  the  society,  in  which  it  was  introduced.  It  left 
to  Caesar  what  belonged  to  Caesar.  St.  Paul  wrote  to  the  slaves  of 
Ephesus  that  the  new  religion  in  no  manner  changed  their  duties.4 

i  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xiv.,  tit.  xviii.,  leg.  I. 

*Autheht.  Collat.  vi.,  tit.  ix.,  novel.  80. 

8  D.  Hieron,  epist.  ad  Pammach.  xxvi. 

4  It  is  generally  said  that  Christianity  abolished  slavery,  and  that  is  true  in  the 
sense  that  it  made  liberty  desirable  for  the  slaves,  and  human  dignity  a  respecta 
ble  dogma  for  the  masters;  but  it  would  be  entirely  wrong  to  believe  that  Chris 
tianity  ever  preached  against  the  legitimacy  of  slavery,  or  excited  the  slaves  to 
free  themselves  by  violence.  The  following  passages  of  St.  Paul  faithfully  sum 
up  the  doctrine  of  Christianity  on  this  subject : 

"  Servants,  be  obedient  to  them  that  are  your  masters  according  to  the  flesh, 
with  fear  and  trembling,  in  singleness  of  your  heart,  as  unto  Christ ; 

"  Not  with  eye-service,  as  men-pleasers ;  but  as  the  servants  of  Christ,  doing 
the  will  of  God  from  the  heart; 

"  With  good-will  doing  service,  as  to  the  I,ord,  and  not  to  men."  (The  Epistle 
of  Paul  to  the  Ephcsians,  vi.  5-7.) 


240  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Alongside  of  the  ancient  moral  world,  Christianity  only  produced 
a  new  moral  world,  into  which  it  admitted  all,  who  were  willing  to 
accept  its  conditions.  It  was  by  this  attractive  power  that  Chris 
tianity  drew  to  itself  successively  all  the  members  of  pagan  society; 
and  the  magnificent  application,  which  it  gave  to  its  ideas  of  frater 
nity,  charity,  and  love,  was  the  principal  cause,  which,  indirectly, 
led  to  so  many  emancipations,  and  created  so  many  proletaries. 

In  pagan  society,  few  slaves  desired  to  become  free,  and  for  a  very 
simple  reason.  As  slaves,  they  had  from  their  masters  all  the  neces 
saries  of  life  ;  they  were  sure  of  never  suffering  from  cold,  or  hun 
ger,  or  thirst ;  of  being  taken  care  of  and  well  treated  in  old  age  as 
in  infancy,  in  sickness  as  in  health.  Free,  they  had  to  provide,  not 
only  for  their  own  wants,  but  also  for  those  of  their  wives  and  chil 
dren  ;  not  only  in  the  vigor  of  manhood,  but  in  old  age  and  sick 
ness:  without  taking  into  account  that,  poor  and  feeble  as  they 
would  necessarily  be  on  emerging  from  slavery,  they  would  have  to 
encounter  all  the  risks  of  a  perpetual  struggle  with  society,  a  strug 
gle,  in  which  even  the  rich  and  the  strong  often  succumb.  But  in 
Christian  society,  the  slave  felt  very  differently  drawn  to  liberty. 
Firstly,  the  Christian  freedman  was  not  repelled  by  the  pitiless  pre 
judice  of  caste.  Without  refusing  to  recognize  the  nobility  of  race, 
Christianity  had  no  exaggerated  preference  for  it.  The  apostles  and 
fathers  extended  the  hand  to  the  freedmen,  and  generally  to  all  the 
common  people,  whom  the  gentiles,  that  is  to  say,  the  nobles  of 
antiquity,  had  till  then  disdained.  St.  Paul  wrote  to  the  Romans 
that  "there  is  no  respect  of  persons  with  God;  "  and  St.  Gregory 
of  Nazianza,  and  St.  Ambrose,  scattered  broadcast  through  their 
works  the  philosophical  railleries  of  Christianity  on  the  domination 
of  the  flesh,  which  fell  plumb  on  nobility,  which  is  nothing  else 
than  the  tradition  of  power  by  blood.1  The  freedmen,  and  the 
children  of  freedmen,  were  therefore  welcome  among  the  Chris- 

1  The  war  of  Christianity  against  gentility,  that  is  to  say,  against  the  nobility 
among  the  pagans,  constitutes  a  very  curious  epoch  in  the  polemics  of  the  fathers. 
It  will  naturally  find  its  place  in  the  second  volume  of  this  work.  We  confine 
ourselves  now  to  citing  this  passage  of  Saint  Ambrose  : 

Quid  te  jactas  de  nobilitatis  prosapia  ?  Soletis  et  canum  vestrorum  origines, 
sicut  divitum  recensere  ;  soletis  et  equorum  vestrorum  nobilitatem,  sicut  consulum 
predicare.  Ille  ex  illo  patre  generatus  est,  et  ilia  matre  editus.  Sed  nihil  istud 
currentem  juvat.  Non  datur  nobilitati  palma,  sed  cursori.  (D.  Ambros.,  in  lib. 
de  Nabucha  Izraelita,  cap.  iii.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  24! 

tians ;  all  the  degrees  of  clerical  ordination  were  open  to  them  ; 
they  could  become  deacons,  priests,  bishops ;  that  is  to  say,  they 
could  leap  over  the  interval,  among  the  ancients  immense  and  im 
passable,  that  separated  extreme  humility  from  extreme  glory.1 

Thus,  Christian  slaves  becoming  freedmen  were  sure  of  having  no 
moral  prejudice  against  them,  and  of  having  all  religious  prejudices 
for  them ;  of  not  being  repelled  as  plebeians,  and  of  being  aided 
as  Christians.  Therefore,  they  hastened  to  be  free,  and  so  impru 
dently,  and  in  such  numbers,  that,  having  become  suddenly  their 
own  masters,  and  responsible  for  their  own  welfare,  the  greater 
number  were  soon  overtaken  by  improvidence  and  misery ;  misery 
unheard  of  before ;  a  frightful  misery,  of  which  the  reminiscences 
of  the  fourth  century  present  a  picture  full  of  horror. 

It  was  this  mass  of  proletaries,  created  by  Christianity,  that  gave 
birth  to  establishments  of  charity.  The  first  document  relative  to 
their  history  is  of  the  year  315.*  It  was  a  law  of  the  Emperor  Con- 
stantine  relative  to  Italy.  It  provides  that,  to  assist  poor  families, 
who  gave  away,  hired,  sold,  exposed,  or  killed  their  children,  for 
want  of  means  to  feed  them,  the  necessary  aid  to  provide  for  their 
support  should  be  granted  annually  from  the  public  treasury.  A 
second  law,  of  the  year  321,  facilitates  and  encourages  legacies  and 
gifts  to  churches,  whose  wealth  was  the  property  of  the  poor ; 3  and 
a  third  law,  of  the  year  322,  renews  for  the  province  of  Africa  what 
that  of  315  had  already  sanctioned  for  Italy.4  A  law  of  Valentinian 
and  Valens,  of  the  year  368,  established  a  sort  of  maximum  in  the 
price  of  food  and  merchandise ;  to  the  end,  says  the  law,  that  the 
poor  may  be  able  to  purchase  necessaries.5  We  see,  by  a  law  of 
Arcadius  and  Honorius,  of  the  year  396,  that  this  maximum  was 
fixed  in  the  provinces  by  an  officer,  called  discussor;*  and  a  law  of 
Valentinian,  Valens,  and  Gratian,  of  the  year  369,  makes  known  that 
the  principal  functions  of  the  discusser  consisted  in  visiting  the 
provinces  periodically,  to  collect  the  balances  of  taxes,  or  remit 

1  We  have  shown,  in  many  places,  what  an  ineffaceable  stigma  slavery  among 
the  ancients  impressed  on  a  man  and  all  his  race,  and  what  scandal  there  was  at 
Rome,  when  Ventidius  Bassus,  who  had  been  a  hostler,  was  made  augur.  In 
Christianity,  however,  the  original  stain  disappeared  completely,  and  nothing  is 
more  common  than  to  find  slaves  become  bishops. 

'2  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xxvii.,  leg.  4.      3  Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  i.,  tit.  ii.,  leg.  r. 

4  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xxviii.,  leg.  2.      5  Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  i.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  r. 

6  Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  i.,  tit.  ix.,  leg.  9. 


242  HISTORY    OF    THE 

them ;  that  is  to  say,  to  do  very  nearly  what  in  the  ancient  financial 
system  of  France  was  done  by  the  controleurs  et  receveurs  des  restes.1 

At  the  commencement  of  the  sixth  century  we  first  find  hospitals 
and  houses  of  refuge.  A  law  of  Justinian  of  the  year  528  contains, 
very  much  at  length,  regulations  for  their  management.  There  were 
houses  for  travellers,  under  the  name  of  xenones ;  for  the  sick, 
under  the  name  of  nosocomia  ;  for  the  poor,  under  the  name  of 
ptocotrophia ;  for  orphans,  under  the  name  of  orphanotrophia ;  for 
foundlings,  under  the  name  of  brephotrophia?  Another  law,  of 
the  year  530,  mentions  houses  for  the  aged,  under  the  name  of  c^- 
rontocomia,  and  for  sick  laborers,  under  the  name  of paranomaria? 
A  subsequent  law  provides  for  a  xeno,  that  is,  an  hospital,  in  every 
city.*  Another  law  of  the  same  year,  modifying  that,  which  de 
clared  legacies  to  uncertain  persons  void,  provided  that  legacies  for 
the  poor  should  be  valid,  and  turned  over  to  the  hospital  of  the  city 
where  the  testator  died.5  Two  other  laws  of  the  Justinian  code  give 
the  same  direction  to  gifts  or  devises  made  in  favor  of  Jesus  Christ,6 
and  all  sorts  of  legacies  given  to  the  martyrs,  prophets,  and  angels.7 
Finally,  a  law  of  the  emperors  Valentinian  and  Martian  decreed 
that  the  public  treasury  should  pay  annually  to  the  churches  a  sum 
for  feeding  and  keeping  the  poor.8  This  law,  which  is  the  counter 
part  of  the  two  ordinances  of  Constantine,  of  the  years  318  and 
322,  and  which,  with  those  of  Justinian,  completes  the  regulations 
for  hospitals,  was  of  the  year  454. 

By  this  series  of  laws  Christianity  verified  the  language  of  St. 
Ambrose  about  the  goods  of  the  church;  that  they  were  the  patri 
mony  of  the  poor.  It  accepted  the  legacy  of  misery  and  nun, 
which  the  ancient  world  left  to  it ;  it  gave  a  real  value  to  the  en 
franchisement  of  slaves,  by  admitting  them  even  to  the  highest 
grades  of  the  sacerdotal  hierarchy ;  and  for  those,  in  whose  hands 
liberty  was  barren,  and  who  were  dying  of  hunger,  in  spite  of  their 
rights  as  citizens,  it  created  asylums  always  open  to  want,  old  age, 
and  sickness ;  giving  thus  to  some  bread  for  the  soul,  to  others  bread 
for  the  body,  according  to  their  need. 

^od.  Theod.,  lib.  xi.,  tit.  xxvi.,  leg.  I,  2. 

2  Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  i.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  42,  $  6. 

3  Cod.  Justin.,  lib.  i.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  49,  $3.         *  Ibid.,  lib.  i.,  tit.  iii.,  leg.  49,  $  6. 
5  Ibid.,  lib.  i.,  tit.  ii.,  leg.  26,  in  proem.  *  Lib.  i.,  tit.  ii.,  leg.  26,  g  i. 

T  Li!>.  i.,  tit.  ii.,  leg.  15.'  8  Lib.  i.,  tit.  ii.,  leg.  12. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  243 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

LITERARY   SLAVES. 

IN  following  the  slave  races  through  the  vicissitudes  of  their  for 
tune,  we  have  seen  them  leaving  the  bosom  of  the  noble  family, 
in  which  they  were  absorbed,  to  reach  by  emancipation  the  com 
munal  association.  Once  become  burghers,  the  children  of  the  old 
slaves  were  distributed  among  the  industrial  fraternities ;  for  the 
commune  only  regulated  their  civil  interests.  The  trades'  unions 
regulated  their  labor. 

When  the  slave  races  entered  the  commune  and  the  trades' 
unions,  they  had  just  been  freed.  Landed  property,  therefore,  was 
to  them  almost  unknown ;  for  besides  that  their  means  were  very 
limited,  the  ownership  of  land  presupposed  certain  seignorial  quali 
fications,  which  they  did  not  possess.  Labor,  manual  labor,  ap 
plied  to  the  trades,  to  the  arts,  to  small  traffic,  thus  became  the 
necessary  condition  of  the  infant  burghers. 

Now,  labor  does  not  suffice  for  all  the  world.  Labor  is  like  land  ; 
its  returns  are  proportioned  to  what  is  given  to  it.  He,  who  brings 
to  his  work  the  most  activity  and  intelligence,  is  also  the  one,  who 
derives  most  profit  from  it.  The  inequality  of  physical,  intellec 
tual,  and  moral  faculties,  therefore,  produced  inequality  of  condition 
among  the  freedmen,  become  burghers  and  members  of  trades' 
unions.  Some  prospered,  others  failed.  Some  had  children,  who 
found  themselves  rich  ;  others  had  children,  who  found  themselves 
beggars.  We  have  seen  that  the  numbers  of  beggars  increased  by 
the  multiplicity  of  emancipations ;  for  the  greater  the  number  to  be 
fed  by  manual  labor,  the  more  there  will  be  left  without  bread. 

But,  whether  the  freedmen  found  in  labor  the  means  of  living, 
or  want  of  work  forced  them  to  beggary,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
slave  races  produced  two  great  classes  of  men  resigned  to  their  con 
dition,  viz.,  the  laboring  burghers,  and  the  beggars.  Both,  con 
fined  to  their  position  of  freedmen,  happy  or  unhappy,  never 
dreamed  of  looking  higher  or  farther.  To  work  well,  or  to  beg 
well,  such  was  the  principal  effort  of  each  day.  And  as  to  the 


244  HISTORY    OF    THE 

superiorities  of  every  kind  of  the  noble  races  over  them ;  superior 
ity  of  intelligence,  of  grace,  of  command ;  they  saw  them  without 
envy,  because  they  were  so  far  above  them,  or»they  accepted  them 
without  hatred,  because  they  were  so  formidable. 

Well !  from  the  bosom  of  these  same  slave  races,  men  arose,  of 
noble  souls  and  bold  spirit,  to  whom  nothing  seemed  too  high  or 
too  great ;  who  found  their  chains  light  enough  to  be  carried  with 
ease,  or  broken  without  effort ;  who  felt  or  believed  they  had  a 
nature  above  the  nature  of  their  fellows,  and  who  would  not  be 
content  with  the  rank,  in  which  God  had  placed  them;  who,  seeing 
the  authority  conferred  by  intelligence,  grace,  and  strength,  deter 
mined  that  they  too  would  become  intelligent,  gracious,  and  strong ; 
and  who,  forgetting  their  low  origin,  ennobled  themselves  by  a  pro 
found  faith  in  their  destiny. 

Thus  there  arose,  among  the  ancients,  from  amidst  the  slaves, 
legions  of  poets,  of  courtesans,  and  of  bandits ;  poets  as  illustrious 
as  Terence,  courtesans  beautiful  as  Aspasia,  bandits  formidable  as 
Spartacus ;  all  produced  by  that  moral  courage,  of  which  we  have 
just  spoken  —  triple  protest  of  strong  and  proud  souls,  who  seemed 
to  say  to  God  that  he  had  made  a  mistake,  and  who,  subject  to  the 
noble  races  by  the  accident  of  birth,  subjugated  them  by  mind, 
beauty,  or  terror. 

^  Poetry,  prostitution,  and  brigandage,  among  the  slaves  of  the 
ancients,  were  then  facts  of  the  same  historic  nature,  and  of  the 
same  social  signification. 

The  literature  of  the  slaves  is  one  of  the  most  curious  nooks  of 
antiquity.  It  has  special  characteristics,  which  constitute  it,  give  it 
a  form  of  its  own,  and  make  it  a  domain  apart.  Thus,  the  slave  is 
an  artist,  who  does  not  work  indifferently  at  all  kinds  of  labor.  He 
has  not,  and  does  not  seek  to  have,  any  but  a  certain  order  of  ideas, 
which  he  prefers,  for  which  he  is  most  apt,  and  in  which  he  loves 
to  shut  himself  up.  For  example,  the  slave  never  touches  politics, 
law,  or  history;  all  ideas,  which  he  leaves  to  his  masters;  but  he  ex 
cels  in  philosophy,  in  poetry,  grammar,  rhetoric ;  in  all  things  that 
can  be  done  in  a  corner,  and  which  only  require  reflection,  com 
pilation,  and  meditation. 

The  literary  studies  of  the  slaves  among  the  ancients  were  a 
natural  result  and  logical  consequence  of  their  servitude.  Their 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  245 

masters  sought  to  make  the  most  profit  out  of  their  capacities.  They 
sent  to  the  fields  those,  who  had  only  muscular  strength  ;  they  ap 
plied  to  domestic  uses  those,  who  manifested  facility,  elegance,  and 
docility  ;  and  when  they  discovered  in  them  intellectual  aptitude, 
they  had  them  educated  with  great  care,  either  to  derive  some  day 
an  income  from  their  talents,  or  a  profit  by  their  sale.  Literary 
and  artist  slaves  were  of  great  value.  Suetonius  mentions  Lutatius 
Daphnis,  a  slave  grammarian,  who  was  bought  by  Quintus  Catulus 
for  200,000  Roman  sesterces,  and  Lucius  Appuleius,  also  a  slave 
grammarian,  whom  the  knight  Calvinus  hired  from  his  master  for 
40,000  sesterces  per  annum.1  Talented  slaves  were  therefore  a  great 
fortune  for  their  masters,  and  their  education  was  pushed  to  the 
extreme  of  refinement,  (a)  The  custom  of  the  ancients  to  be  served 
entirely  by  slaves,  caused  the  latter  to  be  divided  into  classes,  ac- 

1  Suetonius  de  illust.  gramm.,  cap.  iii. 

(#)  These  talented  slaves,  poets,  grammarians,  and  rhetoricians,  were  not  of 
the  race  of  Ham  —  negroes  —  but  descendants  of  Shem  and  Japhet,  of  the  same 
blood  as  their  masters.  Quaere  :  Does  this  account  for  the  fact  that,  since  the 
day  when  the  pious  and  benevolent  Christian  priest,  Las  Casas,  first  suggested  the 
substitution  of  African,  or  negro,  for  American  Indian  slave-  laborers,  down  to  the 
present  hour,  no  owner  of  negro  slaves  has  ever  discovered  sufficient  intellectual 
aptitude  in  any  one  of  them,  to  induce  the  experiment  of  education,  with  a  view 
to  profit,  either  by  hire  or  sale  ? 

In  France,  the  two  Dumas,  father  and  son,  novelists,  would  seem  to  confirm 
the  views  of  our  author. 

With  us,  Fred  Douglass,  who  has  been  prominent  in  POLITICS  at  the  North, 
would  seem  to  contradict  his  theory. 

The  philosophic  historian  should  not  overlook  the  fact  that  the  two  Dumas  in 
France,  and  Fred  Douglass  in  America,  were  all  more  white  than  black.  All 
have  manifested  decided  intellectual  aptitude,  very  superior  talents,  in  a  certain 
order  of  ideas.  The  phenomenon  of  Fred  Douglass's  prominence  in  Northern 
politics  is  easily  explained.  He  was  forced  into  that  prominence  against  his 
nature,  and  almost  against  his  own  will,  by  those  who  sought,  by  abolishing 
negro  slavery,  to  divorce  Southern  capital  from  Northern  labor,  and  thereby  to 
reduce  the  wages  of  a  working-man  in  the  North  below  the  cost  of  feeding  and 
clothing  a  negro,  and  to  enlist  capital  at  the  South,  as  well  as  at  the  North,  in 
support  of  a  system  of  legislation,  that  would  make  labor  cheap  and  living  dear. 

But  surely  those  are  short-sighted  politicians,  utterly  undeserving  the  name  of 
statesmen,  who  permit  themselves  to  believe  that  35,000,000  of  the  Caucasian 
race  will  long  permit  them  to  use  4,000,000  of  ignorant  negro  freedmen,  as  voters, 
to  enforce  such  a  system  of  legislation,  y^ 


\  tfct 


( 


246  HISTORY    OF    THE 

cording  to  their  employment.  There  were  in  every  grand  seignior's 
house,  independently  of  the  slaves  of  low  estate,  slave  overseers, 
slave  huntsmen,  slave  singers,  slave  musicians,  and  buffoons,  who 
played  comedies  during  meals ;  finally,  slave  poets,  grammarians, 
and  rhetoricians,  to  educate  the  children.1  Plutarch  and  Xenophon 
testify  that  throughout  Greece  and  Italy  education  was  entirely 
turned  over  to  slaves.  Cato  the  elder  had  many  intrusted  with  the 
education  of  his  children,2  and  Xenophon,  in  his  treatise  on  the 
Republic  of  Sparta,  regrets  that  in  Greece,  where  they  boasted  of 
educating  children  best,  they  always  gave  them  slaves  for  preceptors.3 

It  was  in  consequence  of  these  educational  functions  that  the 
slaves,  among  the  ancients,  monopolized  all  that  may  be  called  the 
meditative  arts  ;  that  is  to  say,  all  that,  like  grammar,  poetry,  and 
philosophy,  may  be  studied  in  private  and  in  the  silence  of  thought. 

Grammar  was  considered  by  the  ancients  a  great  and  beautiful 
art,  comprising  not  only  what  we  call  philosophy,  but  also  a  multi 
tude  of  facts  and  ideas  properly  belonging  to  history,  philosophy, 
poetry,  and  the  divine  science  of  augury.  We  can  judge  what  their 
books  of  grammar  were  by  the  treatises  of  Varro,  the  Saturnales  of 
Macrobius,  and  the  Floridas  of  Apuleius,  all  works  of  great  interest, 
but  which  never  had  among  the  ancients  the  reputation  of  some 
other  treatises  on  grammar ;  as,  for  example,  those  of  the  gram 
marian  Didymus,  whom  Plutarch  frequently  cites. 

The  study  of  grammar,  as,  indeed,  the  study  of  all  the  arts  that 
have  made  the  West  illustrious,  had  its  origin  in  Greece.  The  Greeks 
distinguished  the  grammarians  *  from  the  grammaiists,  as  we  distin 
guish  quacks  from  physicians.  Between  the  second  and  third  Punic 
war,  one  Crates  Mallotes,  says  Suetonius,  was  sent  as  ambassador 
to  Rome  by  Attalus.  One  day,  in  passing  through  a  street  on  Mount 
Palatine,  he  fell  into  a  sewer  and  broke  his  thigh-bone.  During 
his  ministry,  or  rather  during  his  convalescence,  he  had  at  his  house 
literary  reunions.5  Ennius  and  Livius  Andronicus,  who  were  poets 
and  rhetoricians,  half  Greek,  and  recently  deceased,  had  also  held 
these  philological  exercises.  The  example  of  Crates  decided  the 
public  taste,  and  grammar  was  the  fashion  at  Rome. 

1  Plutarch,  Paulus  /Emilius,  cap.  vi.  2  Plutarch,  Cato,  cap.  xx. 

3  Xenophon  de  repub.  Lacedsem.,  cap.  ii. 

4  Sueton.  de  illust.  gramm.,  cap.  iv.  5  Ibid.,  cap.  ii. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  247 

After  that,  grammarians  abounded.  There  were  sometimes  more 
than  twenty  celebrated  schools  open  at  Rome  at  the  same  time.1 
The  grammatic  frenzy  reached  the  provinces.  Masters  of  renown 
established  themselves  there.  Suetonius  mentions,  among  others, 
Octavius  Teucer,  Siscennius  lacchus,  and  Appius  Chares,  who  went 
into  Cisalpine  Gaul,  and  there  taught  to  such  an  advanced  age,  that 
they  became  blind,  and  were  carried  to  their  schools  in  a  litter.2 

All  these  professors  of  grammar  were  slaves  or  freedmen  ;  for 
their  masters  sometimes  preferred  to  leave  to  their  intelligent  slaves 
the  free  control  of  their  industry,  and  to  emancipate  them  on  con 
dition  of  their  paying  a  certain  sum,  and  without  prejudice  to  the 
patron's  right  to  succeed  to  the  estate  of  the  client.  Thus,  in  the 
war  against  Tigranes,  the  grammarian  Tyrannion  having  been  taken 
prisoner  and  made  a  slave,  Murena  asked  him  of  Lucullus,  obtained, 
and  set  him  free.3 

Suetonius  has  given  a  long  list  of  these  slave  or  emancipated 
grammarians.  He  mentions,  as  one  of  the  first  who  acquired  some 
celebrity,  Suevius  Nicanor,  who  was  also  a  satiric  poet.4  Next,  An- 
tonius  Gnipho,  a  Gaul,  born  free,  but  exposed  in  his  infancy,  and 
emancipated  by  the  person  who  found  and  raised  him.  He  had  his 
first  school  in  the  palace  of  Julius  Caesar,  and  afterward  opened 
one  in  his  own  house.  This  school  was  attended  by  the  most  illus 
trious  -youths.5  Cicero  attended  it,  even  during  his  prsetorship. 
Antonio  Gnipho  gave  lessons  in  grammar  every  day,  and  declaimed 
on  market  days.  These  declamations  were,  in  prose,  what  the  im 
provisations  of  the  Italians,  French,  and  Germans,  which  we  have 
witnessed  of  late  years,  were  in  verse  ;  that  is,  an  amplification  in 
places  of  resort,  more  or  less  public,  on  a  given  subject. 

In  the  time  of  Antonius  Gnipho,  and  for  some  time  after  him, 
Atteius,  the  philologian,  an  Athenian  and  a  freedman,  lived  at 
Rome  in  great  reputation.  He  was  intimate  with  Sallust  and  Asi- 
nius  Pollion,  and  composed  for  the  former  an  abridgment  of  Ro 
man  history.6  It  appears  from  the  remarks  of  Pollion  on  the 
writings  of  Sallust,  that  Atteius  scattered  through  the  books  of  the 
latter  that  antique  terminology,  which  has  often  been  objected  to.7 

1  Sueton.  de  illust.  gramm.  cap.  iii.      2  Ibid.,  cap.  iii.          3  Plutarch,  Lucullus. 
4  Sueton.  de  illust.  gramm.,  cap.  v.      5  Sueton.  de  illust.  gramm.,  cap.  vii. 
6  Ibid.,  cap.  x.  *  Ibid.,  cap.  x. 


248  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Valerius  Cato  and  Cornelius  Epicadus  were  also  very  nearly  cotem- 
poraneous  with  Antonius  Gnipho.  The  first  was  a  grammarian  and 
professor  of  poetry.  Cornelius  Epicadus  was  ^  freedman  of  Sylla,1 
who  made  him  herald  of  the  college  of  augurs.  On  the  death  of 
Sylla,  he  finished  the  memoirs,  which  the  dictator  had  left  imper 
fect.  Staberius  Eros,  bought  at  the  market-place,  and  shown  naked 
on  the  selling-block,  and  afterward  freed  by  his  master,  was  the 
preceptor  of  Brutus  and  Cassius.2  Lenseus,  the  freedman  of  Pom- 
pey,3  and  the  companion  of  all  his  wars,  had  his  school  in  the  Ca- 
rini,  that  noble  suburb  of  Rome,  where  were  the  temples  of  Juno 
and  of  Terra,  and  where  Pompey,  Cicero,  and  a  great  number  of 
rich  and  illustrious  nobles  had  their  hotels. 

Quintus  Csecilius  Epirota,  with  three  names  like  a  gentleman, 
freedman  of  the  knight  Atticus,  the  friend  of  Cicero,  had  some 
thing  of  the  fate  of  Abelard.*  Intrusted  with  the  education  of  the 
daughter  of  Atticus,  he  fell  in  love  with  her,  and  the  expression 
used  by  Suetonius  on  this  matter  does  not  forbid  us  to  suppose  that 
he  was  favorably  listened  to  by  his  scholar.5  The  intrigue  being 
discovered,  the  preceptor  was  discharged,  and  the  young  girl  mar 
ried  to  Marcus  Agrippa.  From  the  house  of  Atticus,  his  patron, 
Quintus  Csecilius  Epirota  passed  into  that  of  Cornelius  Gallus.  The 
grammarian  lived  with  him  in  the  strictest  friendship,  and  in  the 
struggle,  which  Cornelius  Gallus  had  to  sustain  with  Augustus  —  a 
fatal  struggle,  which  brought  his  head  to  the  scaffold  — his  intimacy 
with  the  freedman  became  the  subject  of  the  most  serious  charge. 
Deprived  of  this  second  patron,  Quintus  Caecilius  Epirota  opened  a 
school.  He  received  very  few  pupils,  and  only  very  young  ones, 
which  caused  the  poet  Domitius  Marsus  to  give  him  the  name  of 
"nurse  to  sucking  poets."  6  To  the  last,  Quintus  Caecilius  Epirota 
manifested  the  moral  characteristics,  which  had  begun  the  misfor 
tunes  of  his  life.  He  was  the  first,  who  gave  lessons  on  Latin  sub 
jects.  While  the  other  grammarians  recognized  the  Greek  only 
as  the  language  of  learning  and  literature,  he  dared  to  scandalize  his 
auditors  by  reading  Virgil  and  other  cotemporaneous  poets.7 

1  Sueton.  de  illust.  gramm.,  cap.  xi. 

2  Ibid.,  cap.  xi.     See  also  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.,  lib.  xxxv.,  cap.  Iviii. 
•''Ibid.,  cap.  xv.  *  Ibid.,  cap.  xv.  5 Sueton.,  cap.  xv. 
6  Ibid.,  cap.  xv.                        7  Ibid.,  cap.  xv. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  249 

Alongside  of  grammarians  like  Caecilius  Epirota,  Rome  had 
others  of  less  brilliant  but  more  peaceable  fortune,  such  as  Ver- 
rius  Flaccus,  Scribonius  Aphrodisius,  Caius  Julius  Hyginus,  and 
Caius  Melissus. 

Verrius  Flaccus l  established  public  debates,  in  which  he  gave  the 
victor,  as  a  prize,  some  rare  book.  Augustus  chose  him  as  precep 
tor  of  his  nephews,  and  he  had  his  school  at  first  in  the  palace, 
afterward  in  Catiline's  hotel,  which  was  part  of  the  palace.  Scri 
bonius  Aphrodisius,2  freedman  of  Scribonia,  first  wife  of  Augustus, 
and  the  cotemporary  of  Verrius,  left  a  treatise  on  orthography. 
Caius  Julius  Hyginus,3  a  freedman  of  Augustus  and  friend  of  Ovid, 
was  the  emperor's  librarian,  which  did  not  prevent  his  giving  les 
sons.  Caius  Melissus,4  exposed  in  infancy,  saved  and  given  to 
Maecenas,  and  by  Maecenas  to  Augustus,  was  made  by  the  emperor 
librarian  of  the  portico  of  Octavia. 

Finally,  we  have  to  speak  of  Quintus  Remmius  Palemon,  who 
was  a  curious  type  of  the  slave  artist,  disdainfully  revolting  against 
his  condition.  Palemon  commenced  as  the  slave  of  a  weaver.* 
Then  he  accompanied  his  master's  son  to  the  schools,  and  learned 
belles-lettres  by  stealth.  Fortified  by  study  and  freed,  he  became, 
under  Tiberius  and  Claudius,  the  most  celebrated  grammarian  of 
Rome.  Full  of  faults  and  vices,  nevertheless  he  captivated  the 
sternest  minds  by  the  inexpressible  attraction  of  his  speech  and  the 
surprising  retentiveness  of  his  memory.  At  need,  too,  he  wrote  good 
verses.  Bold,  conceited,  and  arrogant,  he  affected  the  greatest  con 
tempt  for  the  learned  Marcus  Terentius  Varro,  and  carried  the 
elastic  vulgarity  of  abusive  latinity  to  its  utmost  stretch,  by  telling 
him  that  he  was  nothing  but  a  hog.5  He  pretended  that  Virgil  had 
clearly  predicted  him,  in  his  third  eclogue  —  by  making  Palemon 
the  judge  of  the  verses  of  Menalchus  and  Dametas — as  the  one, 
whose  opinions  on  all  matters  of  poetry  posterity  would  accept ; 6  and 
he  related,  with  an  exquisite  fatuity,  how  the  robbers,  who  had  cap 
tured  and  wished  to  hold  him  for  ransom,  let  him  go  with  the 
greatest  deference,7  out  of  respect  to  the  celebrity  of  his  name. 

Bold  as  a  knight,  Quintus  Remmius  Palemon  was  voluptuous  as 

1  Sueton.,  cap.  xvii.  2  Ibid.,  cap.  xix.  3  Ibid  ,  cap.  xx. 

4  Ibid.,  cap.  xxi.  5  Ibid.,  cap.  xxiii.  6  Ibid.,  cap.  xxiii. 

7  Ibid.,  cap.  xxiii. 


25O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

a  Sybarite.  He  took  an  exorbitant  number  of  baths  each  day,  and 
his  domestic  luxury  absorbed  not  only  the  income  from  his  school, 
but  his  whole  estate.  His  excessive  fondness  for  gallantry  ended 
by  ruining  him,  and  he  spent  in  gayeties  the  income  of  his  broker's 
warehouses,  and  even  that  of  his  vineyards,  which  he  had  himself 
planted,  and  which  yielded  him,  according  to  Suetonius,  365  am 
phorae  of  wine.1 

Rhetoric,  although  near  akin  to  grammar,  was  nevertheless  so  far 
separated  from  it,  as  to  require  men  of  different  condition.  Nearly 
all  the  grammarians  were  slaves.  On  the  contrary,  very  few  slaves 
became  rhetoricians.  For  this  essential  difference,  there  were  sim 
ple  and  natural  reasons,  which  may  here  be  given. 

Grammar  was  an  art  for  youth,  rhetoric  for  manhood.2  The 
former  taught  the  principles  of  spoken  and  written  language.  The 
latter  taught  the  practice  of  speech.  Rhetoric,  therefore,  belonged 
directly  to  politics,  by  senatorial  or  tribunitial  orations,  and  to  juris 
prudence,  by  the  pleadings  before  the  praetor. 

Now,  never,  in  any  country  of  the  world,  have  slaves  applied 
themselves  to  the  study  of  politics,  or  law,  which  belong  exclusively 
to  free  men.  Although  shut  up  in  a  circle  of  generalities  by  the 
conditions  of  all  public  instruction,  and,  therefore,  sustained  by 
mere  commonplaces,  rhetoric  requires  a  knowledge  of  law,  and 
this,  we  say,  it  is  that  raises  it  above  the  sphere  of  slaves.  Pompey, 
Cicero,  Julius  Caesar,  Brutus,  and  Cassius  might  well  go  to  learn 
the  rules  of  good  speaking  of  Greece  in  the  schools  of  grammarians 
like  Marcus  Antonius  Gnipho  or  Staberius  Eros ;  but  what  could 
slaves  teach  those  great  men  on  the  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  the 
science  of  augury,  which  was  part  of  the  law,  or  on  the  affairs  of  the 
republic  ?  An  orator,  in  his  speeches,  had  always  either  the  senate 
to  convince  or  the  judges  to  win  over.  Now,  a  miserable  slave,  de 
prived  of  all  civil  or  domestic  personality,  was  not  qualified  even 
to  speak  of  matters  so  far  above  him  as  were  judicial  and  political 
affairs. 

There  were,  therefore,  among  the  ancients,  and  especially  in 
Italy,  hardly  any  examples  of  orators  among  the  slaves  or  freedmen. 

It  was,  also,  for  the  same  reason  that  history  with  the  ancients 
was  never  written  by  slaves.  The  ancients  had  no  idea  of  what  we 
1  Sueton.  de  illust.  gramm.,  cap.  xxiii.  7  Ibid.,  cap.  iv. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  2$I 

call  philosophical  history  ;  that  is  to  say,  no  idea  of  a  general  re 
cital  and  classification  of  human  facts  for  the  demonstration  or  justi 
fication  of  a  principle.  It  seems  that  they  were  too  near  the  start 
ing-point  to  have  been  able  to  study  the  tendency,  and  learn  the 
direction  of  events.  They  confined  themselves,  therefore,  to  writ 
ing  memoirs  on  very  narrow  topics.  We  have  only  a  very  small 
part  of  the  numberless  historical  works  composed  by  the  ancients  ; 
but  those  we  have  justify  this  opinion  marvellously.  The  books 
of  Thucydides  and  Xenophon,  among  the  Greeks,  of  Sallust  and 
Tacitus,  among  the  Romans,  are  memoirs  like  those  of  Philippe  de 
Comines  or  the  Marechal  Blaise  de  Montluc  ;  and  as  to  general  his 
tories,  like  those  of  Herodotus,  Polybius,  and  Titus  Livius,  they  are 
general  only  in  name  ;  amounting  only  to  meagre  summaries,  pre 
senting  the  personal  views  of  the  author,  or  abridging  former  chron 
icles. 

Among  the  ancients,  historians  generally  were  divided  into  two 
classes  :  those  who  wrote  what  they  had  seen,  and  those  who  com 
piled  from  the  books  of  others.  The  former  were  much  the  most 
numerous.  Thus,  military  men,  who,  like  Thucydides,  Xenophon, 
Arrian,  Polybius,  Pausanias,  Cato,  Sylla,  Csesar,  Hirtius,  Augustus, 
Tiberius,  Claudius,  King  Juba,  and  Tacitus,  had  taken  part  in  the 
wars,  or  travellers,  who,  like  Herodotus  and  Strabo,  had  visited  dis 
tant  countries,  ordinarily  became  historians.  Now,  slaves  and  freed- 
men,  who  were  not  free  to  travel,  were  not  regularly  admitted  into 
the  armies,  and  never  could  acquire  the  grade  of  officers,  could  not 
find  a  place  among  this  class  of  historians. 

There  remain  the  compilers,  like  Diodorus  of  Sicily,  Sallust,  Cor 
nelius  Nepos,  Titus  Livius,  Plutarch,  Suetonius.  But  the  nature  of 
their  work  required  numerous  collections  of  memoirs,  rare  and 
costly.  Besides,  to  write  history,  even  after  another,  always  in 
volves  the  necessity  of  judging  men,  and,  consequently,  of  some 
times  condemning  them.  Now,  it  would  have  seemed  intolerable 
to  the  generals  and  statesmen  of  antiquity  to  be  judged  by  slaves  ; 
that  is  to  say,  by  men  totally  ignorant  of  the  military  art  and  the 
science  of  statesmanship. 

We  say,  then,  that  among  the  ancients,  history  was  written  ex- 
clusively  by  gentlemen.  We  scarcely  find  one  or  two  exceptions. 
Suetonius  mentions  one  Lucius  Otacilius  Pilitus,  who  was  a  slave 

c 


U>IAX- 

^A\rt  a,ti.  i&    I   .  .  L  t* 


252  HISTORY    OF    THE 

porter,  and,  as  such,  fastened  by  a  chain,  as  we  do  with  dogs,  to  his 
master's. door.1  His  natural  talent  impelling,  he  became  a  distin 
guished  rhetorician,  educated  Pompey,  and  wrofe  a  history,  in  many 
books,  of  the  military  expeditions  of  the  Pompeys,  father  and  son.2 
Suetonius  mentions  this  fact,  which  he  characterizes  as  very  strange  ; 
adding,  on  the  authority  of  Cornelius  Nepos,  that  he  was  the  first 
slave,  who  undertook  to  write  history,  which  up  to  that  time  had 
been  exclusively  reserved  to  writers  of  noble  birth.3 

Poetry  and  philosophy  were  especially  the  literary  labor  suitable 
for  slaves,  because  they  required  neither  travel,  nor  the  patient 
study  of  chronicles,  nor  high  position  in  the  state  ;  and  because 
for  them  a  little  quiet  corner  sufficed,  where  the  slave  could  medi 
tate,  until  his  thoughts  were  elevated  by  degrees  to  the  imaginations 
that  make  the  poet,  or  to  the  reflections  that  make  the  philosopher. 

We  must  make  this  general  remark  on  the  slaves,  who  cultivated 
poetry  at  Rome,  at  least  before  the  Christian  era :  that  they  were 
nearly  all  Greek  by  birth  or  education,  and  nearly  always  used  the 
Greek  language  in  their  compositions.4  We  have  already  seen, 
that  from  the  time  of  Augustus,  Q.  C.  Epirota  introduced  a  great 
novelty  in  citing  Virgil  and  other  cotemporaneous  poets  as  models. 
In  the  estimation  of  the  literary  men  of  Italy,  there  was  but  one 
language  that  was  learned,  complete,  and  worthy  of  being  used  for 
literary  composilion.  That  was  the  Greek.  The  grammarians  lec 
tured  in  Greek,  and  quoted  Greek  authors.  The  rhetoricians  de 
claimed  in  Greek.  The  Latin  was  considered  the  national  idiom, 
it  was  true  ;  but  more  proper  for  the  medical  receipts  of  the  elder 
Cato,  or  for  the  judicial  proceedings  of  the  praetor,  than  for  the 
elegant  creations  of  the  poets. 

From  the  period  of  which  we  speak,  the  Latin  poets  may  be 
divided  into  two  classes  j  the  comedians,  and  the  epic  and  lyric 
poets. 

The  comedians,  as  we  understand  them,  were  all  those,  who  com 
posed  tragedies,  comedies,  and  farces,  and  generally  acted  them  ; 
all,  who  composed  songs  and  sang  them  in  the  streets;  all,  who  wrote 

1Sueton.  de  clar.  rhetor.,  cap.  iii.  2Ibid.,  cap.  iii. 

3  Ibid.,  cap.  iii. 

*  The  ancients  generally  remarked  that  the  Syrians  and  Asiatic  Greeks  appeared 
destined  by  nature  for  slavery.  "  Hie  Syri  et  Asiatici  Groecisunt  levissima  genera 
hominum  etservituti  nata."  (Tit.  Liv.  Hist.,  lib.  xxxvi.,  cap.  xvii.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  253 

satires,  and  recited  them  on  the  boards  in  public.  We  may  add  to 
these  different  kinds  of  comedians,  buffoons,  jugglers,  sword-swal- 
lowers,  fortune-tellers,  magicians;  in  fine,  that  eternal  and  universal 
Babel  of  men  of  talent,  frothing  always  and  everywhere  on  the  sur 
face  of  the  people  —  mysterious  river,  flowing  on  a  level  with  the 
earth,  over  the  slime  of  every  nation,  having  no  known  source,  fat 
tening  on  the  condensed  clouds  of  the  occult  sciences,  and  having 
two  estuaries,  the  gallows  and  the  hospital. 

Perhaps  there  does  not  exist  one  piece  of  stage  literature  written 
in  Latin,  that  was  not  a  translation  or  imitation  of  the  Greek,  and 
on  a  Greek  subject.  Plautus  and  Terence  have  done  little  more 
than  translate  Menander,  Aristophanes,  Diphilus,  Philemon,  De- 
mophilus,  Epicharmus  the  Sicilian,  Eubulus,  Apollodorus,  Posidip- 
pus,  and  the  other  dramatists  of  Greece.1  The  sale  of  slaves  raised 
in  Sicily,  the  Ionian  Isles,  or  Asia  Minor,  or  the  vicinity  of  the 
Greek  colonies  established  along  the  Adriatic  Sea,  were  the  two 
sources,  whence  unpolished  Rome  derived  her  poetry  and  fine 
language. 

Plautus  was  the  first  Italian  slave  who  wrote  comedies.  He  trans 
lated  or  imitated  the  Greek  classics,  while  turning  a  handmill  in 
one  of  the  establishments  belonging  to  the  bakers'  trade's  union  of 
Rome.  Three  Greek  philosophers,  Menedemus,  Asclepiades,  and 
Cleanthis,  turned  a  mill,  as  he  did.2  Plautus  lived  in  the  first  half 
of  the  second  century  before  the  Christian  era.  Shortly  after  him 
came  Terence,  the  slave  and  freedman  of  the  noble  house  of  Te- 
rentius  Lucanus.  Terence  followed  the  example  of  Plautus,  and 
translated  the  stage  classics  of  the  Greeks,  as  he  boasts  in  the  pro 
logue  to  his  Andrienna.3  The  stage  literature  of  the  Romans  is,  in 
fact,  represented  by  Plautus  and  Terence ;  although  we  find  other 
freedmen,  who  attempted  it;  among  others,  Caius  Melissus,  a  slave 
grammarian,  who  was  given,  as  a  present,  to  Augustus  by  Maecenas. 

Alongside  of  the  Greek  stage  literature,  comedia  palliata,  there 
was  also  at  Rome  a  national  stage  literature,  comedia  togata,  taken 
from  Italian  subjects.  Of  this  there  were  four  kinds,  one  of  which 
belonged  exclusively  to  the  young  nobility,  who  composed  the  Atel- 
lanes,  and  acted  them  in  society.4  The  other  three  were  of  the 
province  of  the  slaves. 

1  Philip.  Parei,  de  Script.  M.  Ace.  Plant.        2  Ibid< 

3  Terent.  Andr.,  prolog.,  v.  17-20.  *Tit.  Liv.  Hist.,  lib.  vii.,  cap.  ii. 


254  HISTORY    OF    THE 

There  were  in  ancient  Italy  troups  of  strolling  comedians,  under 
the  orders  of  a  director,  who  bore  the  title  of  '•'•leader  of  theat 
rical  performances •," >1  or  sometimes  the  title  &f  "emperor  of  the 
actors."  2  The  actors  and  actresses  were  always  slaves  or  freedmen, 
and  their  education  corresponded  to  the  part  they  acted.  Those 
who  played  in  the  classic  comedies,  or  in  tragedies,  were  generally 
highly  cultivated  grammarians  ;  for  Cicero  relates  that  they  were 
hissed  pitilessly,  if  they  happened  to  make  a  mistake  in  the  prosody 
of  a  single  syllable.3 

We  comprehend  that  there  naturally  were  companies  of  every 
kind,  according  to  the  fortune  of  the  director  and  the  taste  of  the 
public.  All  directors  did  not  possess  comedians  like  Ofilius  Hila- 
rus,4  Pylades,  and  Bathyllus,  nor  tragedians  like  ^Esop  and  Ros- 
cius.  Besides,  only  Rome  could  pay  for  such  talents  as  theirs. 
Cities  of  the  second  order,  and  Rome  herself,  overflowed  with 
buffoons  and  mimics,  who  played  in  the  open  air,  without  brode- 
kins  or  mask,  and  only  with  some  fantastic  dress,  as  in  the  Atellan 
farces. 

Troups  of  jugglers,  mimics,  and  buffoons  traversed  Italy.  The 
pieces,  which  they  played,  were  sometimes  written  and  learned  by 
heart ;  but  more  often  they  were  reduced  to  some  burlesque  parade. 
Suetonius  mentions  a  freed  grammarian,  named  Lucius  Pansa,  who 
wrote  pieces  for  the  buffoons.5  Generally,  the  mimics  and  buffoons 
were  the  scum  of  the  theatres.  Their  ordinary  representations  on 
the  boards  were  a  mixture  of  dances  and  epigrams,  obscene  panto 
mime,  and  moral  sentences.  There  were  cities  where  buffoons  were 
not  admitted  ;  for  example,  Marseilles.6 

Rome  produced,  under  the  emperors,  mimics  of  great  reputation. 
Vossius  cites  Publius  Laberius,  Publius  the  Syrian,  Philistion  of 
Nice,  Cneius  Mattius,  Lentulus,  Marcus  Marullus,  and  some  others. T 
The  fondness  of  the  emperors  for  the  theatre  had  not  a  little  in 
creased  the  number  of  mimics.  Caligula  and  Nero  treated  them 
with  extraordinary  favor.  Caligula  especially  carried  his  fondness 
for  them  to  frenzy.  Sometimes  in  the  intervals  of  the  play  he  em- 

1  Tacitus,  Annal.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  xvi.  2  Plaut.,  Paenal.,  prolog.,  v.  4,  43,  44. 

3  Cicero,  Parad.,  Hi.,  cap.  ii.  4  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.,  lib.  vii.,  cap.  54. 

5  Sueton.  de  illust.  gramm.,  cap.  xviii.     6  Valer.  Maxim.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  vi.,  $  7. 
7  Vossius,  institut.  poetic.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xxxiii. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  255 

braced  with  transport  the  pantomimic  Mnester.1  One  day,  a  knight 
having  annoyed  that  dancer  by  some  noise,  Caligula  wrote  a  note, 
and  sent  it  at  once  to  the  knight  by  a  centurion,  with  orders  to 
leave  immediately  for  Ostia,  and  thence  for  Mauritania,  to  carry  the 
note  to  King  Ptolemy.  Now,  the  note  contained  literally  these 
words  :  "  Do  neither  good  nor  harm  to  the  bearer."  2 

We  know  that  Caligula  was  stabbed  by  Chaereas,  behind  the 
scenes  of  the  theatre,  while  enraptured  by  gazing  at  some  young 
Asiatic  dancers  of  great  celebrity,  who  were  performing  a  dance  of 
their  country.3 

Below  the  classic  comedy,  below  the  Atellan  farce,  below  even 
the  pantomime  of  the  buffoons,  there  was  another  kind  of  dramatic 
poetry  cultivated  by  slaves.  This  was  satire  sung  in  the  streets, 
with  the  accompaniment  of  music  and  gesture.  Perhaps  it  would 
be  well  to  trace  the  connection  of  this  dramatized  satire,  derived, 
like  all  the  Latin  literature,  from  Greece,  from  the  stilus,  culti 
vated  by  Timon  Phliasius,  the  cotemporary  of  Ptolemy  Philadel- 
phus,  and  Xenophanes  of  Lesbos,  down  to  the  severe  prohibition 
of  it  by  the  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables ;  for  the  license  of  the  stroll 
ing  singers  was  carried  to  such  extremes  that  it  became  necessary 
to  moderate  their  rapture  by  the  rod.*  The  model  of  these  poet- 
comedians  of  the  streets  was  Livius  Andronicus,  a  cotemporary  of 
Ennius,  and  anterior  to  Plautus,  and  whom  Suetonius  calls  a  semi- 
Greek  orator.5  Valerius  Maximus  relates  that  when  the  artist,  who 
had  been  set  free  by  Livius  Salinator,  his  master,  had  grown  old, 
he  hired  a  boy  who  sang  the  stanzas,  and  a  flute-player,  who  accom 
panied  him,  and  that  he,  broken  down  and  blind,  translated  to  the 
crowd  by  pantomime  the  poem,  as  the  singer  and  musician  pro 
gressed.' 

Finally,  and  this  is  the  lowest  stage  of  the  world  of  slave  artists, 
there  were  bands  of  jugglers,  sleight-of-hand  players,  fortune-tellers, 
and  magicians,  who  lived  as  they  could  on  the  curiosity  of  passers-by. 
Sometimes  the  jugglers  had  sufficient  reputation  to  be  called  by  great 
lords,  at  the  end  of  their  feasts,  to  amuse  the  guests  by  their  repartees 
and  tricks.  In  the  satiric  poem  of  Petronius,  Trimalchion  had  moun- 

1  Sueton.  Caligula,  cap.  Iv.  2Ibid.,  cap.  Iv.         3Ibid.,  cap.  Iviii. 

4  Cicero  de  Repub.,  lib.  iv.,  fragm.  33.        5  Sueton.  de  illust.  gramm.,  cap.  i. 
6  Valerius  Maximus,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  iv.,  §4. 


256  HISTORY    OF    THE 

tebanks,  who  danced  on  top  of  a  ladder,  and  jumped  through  hoops 
during  his  famous  dinner.1  Generally,  they  danced  and  exhibited 
at  public  places,  swallowing  Lacedaemonian  swords,  to  the  great  sat 
isfaction  of  the  idle.2  The  fortune-tellers  had  become  so  numerous 
at  Rome,  in  the  time  of  the  first  emperors,  that  they  had  a  union ; 3 
and  the  day  after  Caligula  was  killed,  magicians  arrived  from  Egypt 
and  Syria,  who  were  to  have  given  in  the  theatre  a  representation 
of  hell* 

Epic  and  lyric  poetry  belongs  less  properly  to  slaves  than  dra 
matic  poetry.  Generally,  the  ancient  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  who 
composed  poems,  odes,  and  hymns,  were  men  of  noble  houses. 
The  gnomiqueSy  Theognis,  Phocylides,  Pythagoras,  Solon,  Simon- 
ides,  all  belonged  to  more  or  less  powerful  houses.  Only  Callima- 
chus,  librarian  to  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  and  Tyrteus,  the  Athenian 
general,  commenced  life  as  schoolmasters,  which  is  a  sign  of  very 
humble  extraction.  At  Rome,  Ennius  was  of  a  great  family,  and 
lived  in  intimate  friendship  with  Cato  the  elder,  and  Scipio.  Pacu- 
vius,  his  nephew,  was  not  less  illustrious.  Catullus  and  Lucretius, 
Tibullus  and  Propertius,  Gallus  and  Ovid  were  born  of  distin 
guished  parents.  Juvenal  and  Perseus  were  gentlemen.5 

There  were  scarcely  any  others  then  but  Horace,  Virgil,  and 
Phoedrus,  who  were  poets  of  the  slave  race. 

Horace,  son  of  a  freed  salt-fish-monger,6  also  belonged  to  the 
slave  poets  by  his  Greek  studies.  Virgil,  son  of  a  poor  village  pot 
ter  —  that  is  to  say,  also  born  of  the  slave  race  —  followed  the  bent 
of  all  his  kind,  learned  grammar,  rhetoric,  medicine,  mathematics, 
which  then  comprehended  physics  and  astronomy,  and  even  juris 
prudence,  which  was  an  exception  for  men  of  his  rank,  and  made 
him  one  of  the  most  learned  men  of  antiquity.  Phaedrus,  a  slave, 
full  of  the  sententious  (gnomiques}  poets,  of  the  study  of  ^sop,  of 
the  Milesianisms  introduced  into  the  Latin  literature  by  Ennius  and 
Plautus,  lived  at  the  latter  end  of  the  Greek  revival,  when  the  Latin 
language  had  ceased  to  copy  Homer  and  Plato,  to  try,  with  Seneca, 

1  Petron.  Arbit.  Satir.,  cap.  liii. 

2  Plutarch  relates  the  taunt  of  an  Athenian  to  King  Agis,  that  the  swords  of  the 
Lacedaemonians  were  so  short  that  the  mountebanks  swallowed  them  without 
difficulty.   (Lycurgus,  cap.  xix.) 

3  See  note  to  page  213.  4  Sueton.  Caligula,  cap.  Ivii. 
5  Suet.  Horat.  Vita.  •  Donat.  de  Virgil.  Vita. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  257 

Luc  an,  Juvenal,  Perseus,  the  two  Plinys,  and  a  host  of  others,  to 
revjve  the  traditions  of  Roman  taste,  interrupted  since  the  arrival 
of  Greek  rhetoricians  and  grammarians  in  Italy.1 

After  grammar,  the  theatre  and  poetry,  philosophy  was  the  study 
most  liked  by  the  slaves.  There  were  slaves  in  all  the  notable  an 
cient  schools  of  philosophy.  Phaedon,  to  whom  Plato  dedicated 
his  treatise  on  the  soul,  was  a  young  boy  of  great  beauty,  exposed 
for  sale  at  the  house  of  a  slave-merchant,  who  also  kept  a  house  of 
prostitution  ;  and  he  was  bought  by  Cebes,  the  disciple  of  Socra 
tes.2  The  beautiful  books,  which  he  composed  on  the  doctrine  of 
Socrates,  still  existed  in  the  time  of  Aulus  Gellius,  who  mentions 
them  with  honor.  Menippus,  a  slave  like  Phaedon,  also  became  an 
illustrious  philosopher.  He  devoted  himself  particularly  to  a  kind 
of  philosophical  composition,  under  the  form  of  satire,  which  he 
called  cynic,  and  which  Varro  afterward  imitated.3  These  cynics 
appear  to  have  been  satires  of  the  same  kind  as  the  Cyclops  of  Euri 
pides.  Varro,  in  imitating  them,  wrote  moral  treatises,  and  gave 
them  the  name  of  Mcnippian  satires.  It  is  not  known  to  what 
philosophic  sect  Menippus  belonged.  There  was  a  slave  peripa 
tetic  philosopher,  named  Pompylus,  who  belonged  to  the  philoso 
pher  Theophrastus.*  Perseus,  slave  of  Zeno  the  stoic,  shared  the 
doctrine  of  his  master,  and  Mys,  the  slave  of  Epicurus,  had  no 
other  philosophy  than  his.  Diogenes  the  cynic,  although  born 
free,  was  reduced  to  slavery,  and  bought  in  the  market  at  Corinth 
by  Xeniades,  who  made  him  the  preceptor  of  his  children.5 

Epictetus,  of  the  sect  of  the  Stoics,  was  one  of  the  most  cele 
brated  slaves,  who  cultivated  philosophy.  He  was  a  Greek,  like 
all  the  learned  slaves,  and  belonged  to  Epaphroditus,  the  freedman 
of  Nero. .  Two  verses  which  he  composed  on  himself,  and  which 

1  It  was  this  return  of  Latin  literature  to  its  primitive  and  national  traditions, 
which  gave  birth  to  a  style  called  "  the  style  of  the  decay"     The  rhetoricians, 
pedants  infatuated  with  Greek  and  habituated  to  the  classic  manner  of  Virgil, 
Cicero,  and  Horace,  could  not  reconcile  themselves  to  a  turn  of  style,  which  did 
not  recall  their  consecrated  models,  and  they  treated  it  as  barbarous;  while  it 
only  strengthened  the  language  from  the  old  and  good  sources  of  the  time  of  the 
republic,  from  which  great  orators,  like  Appius  Caecus,  the  Gracchi,  and  Cato,  had 
drawn.     From  the  time  of  Seneca  the  return  to  the  primitive  traditions  of  the 
Latin  language  became  general,  and  even  extravagant.  (Senecae  Epist.,  lib.  ad 
Lucil.,  epist.  cxiv.) 

2  Aul.  Gell.,  Noct.  Attic.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xviii. 

3  Ibid.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xviii.  4  Ibid.  5  Ibid. 


258  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Aulus  Gellius  has  preserved,  show  that  he  was  deformed.1  Under 
Domitian,  a  senatus  consultum  having  expelled  the  rhetoricians  and 
philosophers  from  Italy,  Epictetus,  who  was,  then  a  freedman, 
quitted  Italy,  and  retired  to  Nicopolis.2 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

THE    COURTESANS. 

THE  ancient  courtesans,  whose  history  we  are  about  to  sketch, 
are  not  those,  who  were  exposed  in  public  houses.  These 
latter  offer  no  lesson  for  history.  They  were  poor  girls,  bought  in 
the  market,  naked,  or  nearly  naked,  on  great  tables  called  catasta;* 
that  purchasers,  who  were  hard  to  please,  could  examine  the  offered 
merchandise  closely.4  These  catastcz  were  sufficiently  elevated,  so 
that  from  the  ground  to  the  upper  platform,  on  which  were  the 
slaves,  large  and  high  closets  could  be  constructed.  On  top  of  the 
catastae,  slaves  of  ordinary  value  were  exposed,  naked,  their  feet 
rubbed  with  white  chalk,5  and  a  crown  of  holly-leaves  on  their 
heads.6  In  the  catastae  were  kept  the  slaves  of  great  price,  who 
were  only  shown  to  purchasers  of  some  importance.7  Generally, 
the  trade  of  slave-dealer  was  connected  with  the  profession  of 

1  Aul.  Cell.,  Noct.  Attic.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xviii.  2  Ibid.,  lib.  xv.,  cap.  xi. 

3  It  was  commonly  said  of  a  slave  that  he  had  been  "  bought  on  the  catasta1'  : 
Staberius  eros  hero  suo  emptus  de  catasta.  (Suet,  de  illus.  gram.,  cap.  xiii.) 

1  Statius  says  that  the  catasta  turned  on  a  pivot,  so  that  the  slaves  could  be  ex 
amined  by  purchasers  on  all  sides.  (Stat.  Sylv.,  lib.  ii.,  carmen  i.,  v.  72.) 

5  Tibullus,  lib.  ii.,  eleg.  iii.,  v.  59,  60.     Pliny  also  mentions  three  slaves,  who 
afterward  became  celebrated,  Staberius  Eros  the  grammarian,  Publius  the  mimic, 
and  Manilius  Antiochus  the  astrologer,  who  were  sold  with  their  feet  rubbed 
with  chalk. 

6  Aul.  Cell.,  Noct.  Attic.,  lib.  vii.,  cap.  iv.  A  passage  of  Justin  on  Philip,  King 
of  Macedon,  shows  that  the  usage  was  general.  (Justin.,  lib.  vii.,  cap.  iii.) 

7  Martial  gives  the  curious  details,  as  follows  : 

In  septis  Mamurra  diu  multumque  vagatus 

Inspexit  molles  pueros,  oculisque  comedit : 

Non  hos  quos  primas  prostituere  casae : 
Sed  quos  arcanae  servant  tabulata  catastae, 

Et  quos  non  populus,  nee  mea  turba  videt. 

(Martial.,  lib.  ix.,  epigram  Ix.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  259 

keeper  of  a  house  of  debauch.  Moreover,  this  business  presupposed 
a  consummate  experience  in  the  science  of  the  toilet,  of  which  we 
at  this  day  have  only  a  very  incomplete  idea.  These  merchants 
had  the  art  of  making  women,  otherwise  least  calculated  to  charm, 
appear  young,  elegant,  and  fresh.1  As  fairness  of  skin  was  a  quality 
much  prized  by  the  ancients,  the  women  exposed  for  sale  were 
painted  with  a  preparation  of  white  moss,2  which  gave  them  a  violet 
color  much  prized  by  connoisseurs.  Pliny  relates  that  they  rubbed 
the  bodies  of  those,  who  were  too  thin,  with  resin  ;  a  proceeding 
which  was  intended,  he  assures  us,  to  give  them  the  appearance  of 
strength  and  size.3  Pliny  and  Galien  mention  many  other  details, 
which  the  curious  in  antiquities  of  this  kind  will  do  well  to  consult ; 
but  to  the  recital  of  which  the  French  language  refuses  absolutely 
to  condescend.  In  a  word,  the  slave-traders  possessed  thoroughly 
the  art  of  the  toilette,  according  to  the  ancient  taste  ;  an  infinite 
mystery,  in  which  the  most  skilful  make  mistakes,  and  of  which  we 
can  appreciate  the  difficulties ;  we,  who  have  proved  them  in  the 
art  of  the  toilette  among  the  moderns ;  a  toilette  confined  to  dress, 
while  the  other  undertook  to  manage  the  body  itself. 

But,  we  repeat,  these  are  not  the  courtesans,  whose  lives  we  wish 
to  recount.  What  could  we  say  that  is  not  summed  up  in  a  few 
words  ?  To  be  exposed,  as  long  as  they  were  young,  at  the  door 
of  sonie  house  of  ill  fame,  dressed  from  morning  to  night  in  that 
strange  costume  of  prostitutes,  which  shocks  by  its  splendid  uni 
formity  all  the  customs  of  honest  life ;  and  to  wait,  always  wait, 
with  feigned  pleasure,  between  two  lights,  which  burned  day  and 
night ;  *  such  their  life,  until,  ruined  and  blasted,  they  were  sold  at 
low  price  for  some  less  horrible  work,  which  substituted  fatigue  of 
body  for  bitterness  of  sentiment  and  thoughts  of  ignominy. 

1  Slave-traders  were  called  mangones.     Many  authors  give  the  details  of  their 
business.     Pliny  mentions  them  in  some  places  as  men,  who  excelled  in  making 
perfumes  and  pomades.  (Plin.  Hist.  Natur.,  lib.  xii.,  cap.  xliii.) 

2  Quintil.  Inst.  Orat.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xv.,  $  25. 

Plautus  says,  in  his  comedy  of  the  Ghosts,  that  old  women  rubbed  their  bodies 
with  pomades,  and  painted  themselves  with  white  moss,  to  hide  their  wrinkles ; 
but  that,  not  being  expert  in  the  art  of  the  toilette,  they  heaped,  one  upon  the 
other,  such  a  mixture  of  odors,  that  the  result  was  a  very  questionable  perfume. 
(Plaut.  Mostellar.,  act  i.,  sc.  iii.,  v.  117-121.) 

3  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.,  lib.  xxiv.,  cap.  xii. 

*  It  is  from  Tertullian  that  we  learn  that  the  custom  was  to  have  two  lighted 
candles  before  the  doors  of  houses  of  debauch.  (Tertul.  Apologet.,  cap.  xxxv.) 


2(5O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

The  courtesans,  whose  history  is  curious  and  instructive,  were  the 
freedwomen;  women,  whose  beauty  made  them,  free,  and  who  sub 
jected  the  rich  and  powerful  by  their  graces,  ^s  the  slave  gramma 
rians  or  slave  poets  subjected  them  by  talent. 

We  must  first  correct  an  error,  very  old  and  widespread,  in  rela 
tion  to  the  different  women  spoken  of  by  the  ancient  poets.  The 
elegy-writers  of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  Dorat,  Bertin,  Parny, 
and  some  others,  who  more  or  less  translated  or  imitated  the  ancient 
tlegies,  have  borrowed  from  them  the  various  gallant  speeches, 
which  they  addressed  to  Greek  and  Latin  women,  and  have  ap 
plied  them  to  French  women.  Now,  they  have  not  taken  notice 
of  the  fact,  that  all  the  women  addressed  by  the  ancient  poets  were 
freed  women  courtesans.1  Yes  ;  all  the  women,  to  whom  Horace  ad 
dressed  his  verses,  Pyrrha,  Lydia,  Leuconia,  Tyndaris,  Glycera, 
Chloe,  Barina,  Asteria,  Lycea,  Neobula,  Chloris,  Phidela,  Galatea, 
Phyllis,  Phryne,  Neaera,  Cinara ;  2  all,  of  whom  Catullus  speaks, 
Lesbia,  Hypsithylla,  Acme,  Quintia,  Aufilena ; 3  all  whom  Tibul- 
lus  mentions,  Delia,  Naeara,4  were  courtesans,  freedwomen,  freed 
by  loss  of  virtue,  and  with  more  or  less  brilliant  fortune,  in 
proportion  to  their  beauty  and  their  talent.  We  will  presently 
show  what  splendid  and  incredible  fortunes  some  of  these  women 
made.  Meantime  we  will  speak  of  their  domestic  habits  and  daily 
life. 

Nearly  all  these  courtesan  freedwomen  were  Greeks.  The  names 
of  all  we  have  mentioned  indicate  as  much.  Without  our  being 
able  to  say  exactly  what  was  their  costume,  it  is  certain  that  at 
Rome  the  sumptuary  laws  forbade  their  dressing  like  noble  ladies. 
Tibullus  urges  Delia  to  be  chaste,  notwithstanding  that  the  law 
would  not  permit  her  to  wear  bands  on  her  hair  or  a  long  dress 

1  This  is  proved  morally  by  the  sense  of  all  the  verses  addressed  to  these 
women,  and  literally  by  passages  like  the  following : 

Me  libertina,  neque  uno 
Contenta,  Phryne  macerat. 

(Horat.  Epod.,  lib.,  od.  xiv.,  v.  15,  16.) 
Grata  detinuit  compede  Myrtale 
Liberdna,  fretis  acrior  tradrice. 

(Horat.  Carm.,  lib.  i.,  od.  xxxiii. 

Besides,  there  is  in  the  Athenaeum  a  passage,  which  admits  of  no  reply;  for  it 
is  in  these  words:  "Not  only  the  courtesans,  but  all  the  other  slave  women.1' 
(Athen.  Deipn.,  lib.  xiii  ,  cap.  vi.) 

2  See  odes  of  Horace.  3  Catullus,  passim.  4  Tibullus,  passim. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  26l 

with  a  train,1  which  was  the  privilege  of  women  of  noble  condi 
tion.  Catullus,  in  a  comparison  of  Lesbia  with  the  mistress  of  For- 
mianus,  says  that  Lesbia  had  smaller  feet  and  longer  fingers,2  which 
indicates  that  she  did  not  wear  the  dress  of  Roman  dames;  for  that 
dress  concealed  the  feet  and  hands. 

These  freedwomen  were  very  devout,  or,  at  least,  they  frequented 
the  temples.  Propertius  complains  of  Cynthia  that  she  did  not 
go  there  exclusively  to  pray.3  It  was  generally  at  midday  that 
these  dames  received  the  fashionable  world,*  in  a  very  light  dress, 
and  in  summer  under  a  large  silk  net,5  to  keep  off  the  flies.  The 
rich  youngsters  and  poets  joined  their  circle,  on  leaving  the  forum,6 

1  Sit  modo  casta  doce ;  quamvis  non  vitta  ligatos 
Impediat  crines,  nee  stola  longa  pedes. 

(Tibul.,  lib.  i.,  eleg.  vi.,  v.  67,  68.) 

2  Salve,  nee  nimio  puella  naso, 
Nee  bello  pede,  nee  nigris  oculis, 
Nee  longis  digitis  .  .  . 

(Catul.,  carm.  xliii.) 
5  Fanaque  peccatis  plurima  causa  tuis. 

(Propert.,  lib.  ii.,  eleg.  xv.,  v.  10.) 

4  This  appears  from  a  very  coarse  note  from  Catullus  to  Hypsithylla,  of  which 
we  will  only  cite  one  verse  : 

Jube  ad  te  veniam  meridiatum. 

(Catull.,  carm.  xxxii.) 

5  The  net,  which  seems  to  have  been  an  importation  from  Greece  to  Rome, 
was  only  used  by  the  courtesans,  who  were  nearly  all  Greeks.     It  was  called 
in  Greek  Katvunuott,  from  «u>i/ot£>,  a  gnat,  and  was  Latinized  into  conopeum,  which 
we  find  in  many  authors,  and  among  others  Horace  : 

Interque  signa  turpe  militaria 
Sol  adspicit  conopeum. 

(Horat.,  Epod.  lib.,  od.  ix.) 

The  use  of  the  net  by  courtesans  made  it  an  object  of  contempt  among  the  Ro 
mans.  Propertius  gives  us  to  understand  that  it  was  introduced  into  Rome  by 
the  Egyptians,  and  he  is  indignant  that  they  had  sullied  with  it  the  Tarpeian 
Rock. 

Fcedaque  Tarpeio  conopea  tendere  saxo. 

(Propert.,  lib.  iii.,  eleg.  ix.,  v.  45.) 

Toward  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Domitian,  the  net  had  grown  into  frequent 
use  at  Rome.  The  following  lines  of  Juvenal  show  that  it  was  used  to  cover  the 
cradles  of  babies  : 

Ut  testudineo  tibi,  Lentule,  conopeo 

Nobilis  Euryalum  mermillonem  expriinet  infans. 

(Juvenal,  sat.  vi.,  v.  79,  80.) 

6  It  is  established  by  much  testimony  that  the  business  of  the  forum  ended  at 
midday,  and  that  thence  the  idle  went  to  their  pleasures.     It  is  in  the  sense  of 
this  general  fact  that  we  must  understand  these  two  verses  : 

Varus  me  meus  ad  suos  amores 
Visum  duxerat  e  foro  otiosum. 

(Catul.  carm.  x.) 


262  HISTORY    OF    THE 

when  the  business  of  the  morning  was  over.  The  strictest  decorum 
prevailed  in  these  visits,  which  the  most  eminent  statesmen  made 
openly  before  all  the  world,  to  fashionable  freedwomen,  and  there 
was  no  gentleman  so  distinguished  as  not  to  feel  flattered,  when 
one  of  them  borrowed  his  carriage  and  livery.  Catullus  relates, 
that  having  gone  with  Yarns  to  visit  his  mistress,  and  having  said, 
in  the  conversation,  that  he  had  just  had  made  new  dresses  for  the 
Moors  who  carried  his  litter,  she  asked  him  bluntly  to  loan  them 
to  her,  that  she  might  go  to  the  temple  of  Serapis.1 

With  the  freedwomen  the  day  was  devoted  to  society,  the  even 
ing  to  gallantry.  At  dusk  the  rich  and  idle  youngsters  started  out. 
When  the  courtesans  were  considered  easy  of  access,  or  had  compro 
mised  themselves,  their  visitors  observed  no  ceremony  in  making  a 
noise  at  their  doors,  or  rattling  their  window-shutters.2  But  when 
they  had  acquired  some  consideration  by  their  talent  or  by  their 
dignity,  they  came,  humbly  and  respectfully,  to  sing  romances 
under  their  windows.  Horace  has  preserved  a  refrain  of  one  of 
these  romances,  which  was  sung  for  Lydia  in  her  youth,  which  is  a 
very  proper  and  touching  compliment.3  Sometimes,  lovers  did  not 
confine  themselves  to  simply  singing  romances,  but  brought  with 
them  bands  of  musicians,  to  regale  the  hard-hearted  beauty  with  a 
serenade.  Thus  Horace  recommends  to  Asteria  not  to  show  her 
self  at  the  window  in  the  evening,  when  the  plaintive  flutes  begin 

1  Quaeso,  inquit,  mihi,  mi  Catulle,  paulum 

Istos  commoda;  nam  volo  ad  Serapim 
*  Deferri.  (Catul.,  Carm.  x.) 

Parcius  junctas  quatiunt  fenestras 
Ictibus  crebris  juvenes  protervi, 
Nee  tibi  somnos  adimunt  .  .  . 

(Herat.,  Carm.,  lib.  i.,  od.  xxv.) 

3  The  two  following  verses  appear  to  us  to  have  been  evidently  the  refrain  of 
a  romance  sung  to  Lydia  in  her  youth : 

Me  tuo  longas  pereunte  noctes, 
Lydia,  dormis. 

(Horat.,  Carm.,  lib.  i.,  od.  xxv.) 

This  fact  seems  to  us  clearly  established ;  first,  because  Horace  says  to  Lydia, 
grown  old,  that  she  no  longer  heard  these  words  as  formerly,  audis  minus  et 
minus  jam  ; — next,  because  he  said,  in  a  note  to  Asteria,  that  they  called  her 
cruel  to  the  sound  of  music,  which  could  only  be  in  a  song  : 
Et  te  saepe  vocanti 
Duram  difficilis  mane. 

(Horat.,  Carm.,  lib.  iii.,  od.  vii.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  263 

to  be  heard  in  the  streets.1  Not  unfrequently  two  or  three  sere 
nades,  intended  for  the  same  woman,  came  together  at  the  same 
time  under  the  same  window,  and  the  gallants  bravely  drew  their 
swords,  or  ordered  their  people  to  make  place  for  them  with  their 
daggers.  Propertius,  writing  to  Delia,  who  had  gone  to  pass  the 
summer  at  Tibur,  congratulates  her  that  she  is  no  longer  exposed 
to  having  her  sleep  broken  by  the  nightly  brawls  of  her  followers 
under  her  windows.2 

The  domestic  life  of  the  courtesans  depended  on  the  position  they 
had  made  for  themselves,  and  the  relations  they  had  formed.  The 
richer  ones  had  sumptuous  houses,  numerous  servants,  and  a  costly 
retinue  ; 3  the  greater  number  owned  slaves ;  the  less  fortunate  hired 
them.  What  every  courtesan,  rich  or  poor,  wished  to  have  was  a 
mother.  We  have  already  said  that  they  were  freedwomen,  con 
sequently  born  in  slavery,  and  without  parents.  What  principally 
distinguished  a  courtesan  from  other  women  was  having  no  family ; 
and  this  was  precisely  why  they  attached  so  much  importance  to 
making  one  for  themselves,  though  incomplete,  illusory,  and  pre 
tended.  They  could  not  dream  of  having  a  father.  A  father  was 
completely  impossible  in  their  position.  So  they  fell  back  upon  a 
mother. 

The  mother  of  a  courtesan  was  not  she,  who  gave  birth  to  her  ; 
but  a  woman,  who  gave  her  a  rank.  To  have  a  mother,  that  was  as 
much  as  to  say,  that  they  were  not  mere  foundlings ;  that  they  were 
entitled  to  some  consideration.  It  brought  them  nearer  to  the 
women  of  society.  Gentlemen  displayed  their  titles;  courtesans 
displayed  their  mothers. 

For  ordinary  courtesans  the  mother  was  an  old  woman,  who  had 
served  her  time  as  a  courtesan,  with  an  ambiguous  look  and  familiar 
smile.  For  rich  courtesans  the  mother  was  a  kind  of  domestic 

1  The  serenades  given  to  women  under  their  windows  are  very  clearly  referred 
to  in  these  verses  : 

Prima  nocte  domum  claude ;  neque  in  vias 
Sub  cantu  quaeruloe  despice  tibiae. 

(Horat.,  Carm.,  lib.  iii.,  od.  vii.) 
2Nulla  neque  ante  tuas  orietur  rixa  fenestras 
Nee  tibi  clamatse  somnus  amarus  erit. 

(Propert.,  lib.  ii.,  eleg.  xv.,  v.  5,  6.) 

8  For  example,  the  house  and  retinue  of  Theodota  were  magnificent.  See  note 
on  this  subject  to  page  204. 


264  HISTORY    OF    THE 

fetich,  pompously  dressed,  idle,  a  part  of  the  stationary  furniture 
of  the  room  where  visitors  were  received.1  Zenophon  relates  that 
Socrates  one  day  visiting  Theodota,  a  young  courtesan  of  Athens, 
then  much  the  fashion,  she  insisted  on  presenting  him  to  her  mother,'2 
who  was  splendidly  dressed,  and  surrounded  by  a  swarm  of  servants 
in  attendance  on  her. 

We  readily  conceive  that  the  women  of  ancient  days,  like  those 
of  to-day,  were  fruitful  in  a  thousand  devices  to  enhance  their 
beauty,  or  supply  the  want  of  it.  In  elegant  houses,3  the  walls  of 
the  chambers  were  hung  with  tapestry,  and  the  floors,  laid  in  mo 
saic,  were  covered  with  Babylonian  carpets.*  As  to  the  dress  of 
the  courtesans,  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  reproduce  it  exactly ; 
because,  the  fashion  changing,  both  in  Greece  and  Italy,  we  should 
be  exposed,  by  insufficiency  of  data,  to  mix  up  the  styles  of  dif 
ferent  epochs.  We  can  only  indicate  the  general  features. 

1  Tibullus  draws  a  picture  of  Delia's  mother,  who  was  a  model  of  the  genus  : 

Non  ego  te  propter  parco  tibi,  sed  tua  mater 

Me  movet,  atque  iras  aurea  vincit  anus. 
Haec  mihi  te  addacit  tenebris,  multoque  timore 

Conjungit  nostras  clam  taciturna  manus. 
Hac  foribusque  manet  noctu  me  affixa,  proculque 

Cognoscit  strepitus,  me  veniente,  pedum. 
Vive  diu  mihi,  dulcis  anus.  .  .  . 

(Tibul.,  lib.  i.,  eleg.  vi.,  v.  57-63.) 

2  Xenophon.  Memorab.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xi.,  $4. 

3  The  use  of  hangings  for  the  walls  was  general  in  the  houses  of  the  rich  of 
antiquity,  and  many  examples  can  be  cited.     Thus,  when  the  assassins  sent  by 
Lysander  had  set  fire  to  the  house  of  Alcibiades,  they  tried  to  put  it  out  by  smother 
ing  it  with  coverlets  and  the  tapestry  hangings.  (Plut.  Alcibiades.)     The  use  of 
hangings  came  from  the  East.    Tertullian  thus  speaks  of  the  Medes  and  Parthians : 
"  Sed  et  parietes  Tyriis  et  Hyacinthinis,  et  illis  regiis  veils,  quse  vos  operos  reso- 
Itita  transfiguratis,  pro  pictura  abutuntur."   (Tertul.  de  cult,  femin.,  cap.  viit.) 

*  We  find  carpets  used  throughout  the  East  from  the  earliest  times.  Homer 
mentions  them  often.  To  cite  but  one  example,  see  Odys.,  lib.  x.,  v.  12.  These 
carpets  were  of  fine  wool,  as  is  proved  by  this  passage  from  Pliny:  "  Est  et  hirlx 
(lanoe)  pilo  crasso  in  tapetis  antiquissima  gratia:  jam  certe  priscos  ius  usos, 
Homerus  auctor  est."  (Plin.  Hist.  Natur.,  lib.  viii.,  cap.  Ixxiii.)  PJautus,  in  his 
comedy  of  PseuJolus,  mentions  tapestiy  of  Alexandria,  on  which  animals  were 
represented  : 

Neque  Alexandrina  belluata  conchyliata  tapetia. 

(Plant.,  Pseud.,  act  i.,  sc.  ii.,  v.  14.) 
And  in  his  comedy  of  Stychus,  the  tapestry  of  Babylon  : 

Turn  Babylonica  peristromata,  consutaque  tapetia. 

(Plaut.,  Stych.,  act  ii.,  sc.  iii.,  v.  53.) 

The  height  of  magnificence  was  carpets  of  purple.     Martial  mentions  them  thus: 
Stragula  purpureis  lucent  villosa  tapetis  ; 
Quid  prodest,  si  te  congelat  uxor  anus  ? 

(Mart.,  lib.  xiv.,epigr.  cxlvii.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  265 

First,  we  must  not  accept,  as  the  costume  of  Greek  and  Roman 
women,  the  ridiculous  dress  put  upon  the  stage  in  France  since 
fifty  years.  This  dress,  designed  after  antique  statues  and  cameos, 
is  altogether  imaginary,  and  was  invented  by  the  artists.  Never 
would  the  most  shameless  woman  have  the  impudence  to  appear  in 
public,  in  Athens  or  at  Rome,  in  that  state  of  nudity,  which  does 
very  well  in  statues,  but  of  which  a  woman  of  the  Lupercal  would 
be  ashamed.  We  repeat,  the  costume  of  ancient  statues  is  conven 
tional,1  and  the  moderns  have  made  a  mistake  in  taking  the  rules  of 
architecture  and  sculpture  for  the  rules  of  domestic  life.  Nor  were 
the  statues  of  the  pagan  deities  exposed  naked  in  the  temples.  They 
were  always  dressed  more  or  less  magnificently,2  and  their  hands 
and  faces  were  painted  flesh-color.  At  Rome,  on  the  same  day  that 
the  censors  entered  upon  their  offices,  the  usage  was  to  repaint  all 
the  statues  in  the  city.3 

Ancient  women,  both  Greek  and  Roman,  had  a  passion  for 
bright  colors,  pearls,  precious  stones,  and  tinsel.  They  stained 
their  hair  of  a  ruddy  blond  color,  which  made  it  look  like  gold.4 
Nearly  all  painted  their  faces.5  They  painted  their  eyebrows  and 
lashes,  prolonging  them  by  encircling  their  eyes  with  two  rings  of 
purple.6  Saint  Cyprian  reproached  them  for  thus  giving  themselves 
the  eyes  of  the  serpent.7  The  headdress  differed  with  the  young 
and  old.  The  young  wore  nothing  on  their  heads,  the  old  wore 

1  One  very  simple  reflection  will  suffice  to  show  that  the  ancient  costumes  pre 
served  by  medals,  cameos,  and  statues  were  fanciful,  and  never  had  any  real 
existence.     For  example,  scarcely  any  cameo  represents  a  Greek  or  Roman  man 
with  his  hat,  or  a  Greek  or  Roman  woman  with  a  covering  for  the  head  ;  and 
besides  that  it  is  not  only  logical  to  believe  that  the  ancients  did  not  go  out  in  the 
rain  with  heads  uncovered,  it  is  positively  established  by  numerous  texts  that  the 
women  had  coverings  for  the  head,  and  the  men  hats.     Moreover,  why  should 
ancient  sculptors  have  represented  their  models  in  their   real  costume,  when 
modern  sculptors  take  great  care  to  leave  off  the  cravat,  and  frequently  the  shirt, 
of  those  whom  they  portray.     Scarcely  any  painter  puts  a  hat  on  his  portraits. 
Must  it  then  be  inferred,  a  thousand  years  hence,  that  hats  are  not  worn  ? 

2  Instance  the  saying  of  the  soldier,  who  carried  off  the  cloak  of  cloth  of  gold 
from  the  statue  of  Jupiter  at  Ephesus,  that  it  was  too  hot  for  summer,  and  too 
cold  for  winter. 

3  Plin.,  Hist.  Natur.,  lib.  xxxiv.,  cap.  ix. 
*  D.  Cyprian,  de  habit,  virgin.,  p.  179. 
5Tertul.  de  virgin,  veland.,  cap.  xii. 

6  D.  Cyprian,  de  habit,  virgin.,  p.  177.    Another  passage  of  St.  Cyprian  gives 
other  details  relative  to  eyebrows  and  lashes,  showing  that  the  women  some 
times  dyed  them  with  a  black  powder.   (D.  Cyprian,  de  lapsis,  p.  191.) 

7  D.  Cyprian,  de  habit,  virgin.,  p.  178. 

18 


266  HISTORY    OF    THE 

always  veils.1  Young  courtesans  wore  neither  coif  nor  veil.  More 
over,  the  courtesans  were  nearly  all  Greeks,,  and  retained  every 
where  something  of  the  fashion  of  their  country.  They  wore  the 
hair  curled  and  frizzled,  standing  up  on  the  head  like  a  pyramid  of 
many  stories,  very  like  the  style  of  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  minus  the  powder,  (a)  It  is  also  probable  that  %they  wore 
wigs.2  The  necks  of  elegant  women  were  covered  with  pearls  and 
diamonds,  according  to  their  fortunes.3 

Their  robes  would  require  so  many  details,  because  of  numerous 
changes,  that  we  must  limit  ourselves  to  a  few  general  indications.4 

1  This  clearly  appears  from  many  passages  of  Tertullian,  and  notably  from  that, 
in  which  he  says  that  the  pagans  were  accustomed  to  veil  their  women  from  the 
day   of  marriage,  and  when    conducting  them   to  their   husbands.     Tertullian 
approves  the  custom  by  saying  that  the  girl  thus  becomes  a  wife  in  spirit  before 
becoming  so  corporeally.  (Tertul.  de  virgin,  veland.,  cap.  xi.) 

(a)  The  author's  account  of  the  costume  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  women  of 
easy  virtue  is  so  exact  a  description  of  the  fashionable  style  of  this  day,  that,  if 
his  book  had  not  been  published  many  years  since,  he  might  be  suspected  of 
making  a  war,  disguised  or  open,  upon  the  present  fashions.  But  it  is  curious, 
and  worthy  of  serious  thought,  to  note  the  close  analogies,  political  and  civil, 
social  and  domestic,  between  the  present  condition  of  things  in  the  United  States, 
and  the  condition  of  things  that  marked  the  rapid  decline  and  fall  of  the  great 
Roman  Empire.  Nearly  all  the  fifty-two  tyrant  and  spendthrift  emperors  between 
Augustus  and  Constantine  owed  their  power  to  play  "  such  fantastic  tricks  "  to  the 
"  Grand  Army  "  of  the  Roman  Empire.  To-day  we  have  a  "  Grand  Army  of  the 
Republic,"  a  great  political  machine,  the  real  designs  of  which  (to  use  M. 
Guizot's  language)  are  centred  in  a  few  minds,  while  the  greater  part  of  those 
engaged  in  executing  its  work  have  no  conception  of  them.  General,  now  Sena 
tor  Logan,  of  Illinois,  is  its  Grand  Commander;  and  as  Constantine  owes  much 
of  his  fame  to  his  having  moved  the  seat  of  empire  of  the  Old  World  from  Rome 
to  Constantinople,  and  thereby  accelerated  the  decay  of  Roman  greatness  into 
precipitate  ruin,  so  Grand-Commander  Logan  has  conceived  the  idea  of  moving 
the  seat  of  empire  of  the  New  World  from  the  city  of  Washington,  to  establish 
elsewhere  a  great  metropolis,  to  be  called,  probably,  Logansport.  At  the  same 
time,  our  great  and  fashionable  ladies  have  gone  back  to  the  styles  and  fashions 
of  dress  of  Greek  and  Roman  freedwomen  of  easy  virtue  in  the  times  of  the 
decline  and  fall.^ 

2  The  iron  with  which  the  courtesans  frizzled  their  hair  was  called  calamistrum. 
Varro  describes  it  thus  :  "  Calamistrum,  quod  his  calefactis  in  cinere  capillus  orna- 
tur."     The  slave,  who  used  this  iron  for  dressing  his  mistress's  head,  was  called 
cinerarius,  because  he  heated  it  in  the  ashes.  (Varro,  de  ling.  Lat.,  lib.  v.,  cap.  129.) 

3D.  Cyprian,  de  lapsis,  p.  191. 

*  We  take,  or  rather  we  continue  to  take,  from  the  Latin  fathers  of  the  second 


O\VA 

\\^\  fY>xoXMLX-«  21*.  -jr*^  'vvwj  Wv  UVM  (xn/vwlw.. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  26/ 

At  Rome,  only  noble  women  had  the  right  to  wear  a  long  robe 
with  a  train,  which  was  called  stola.1  This  robe,  fastened  at  the 
waist  with  a  clasp  of  emeralds,  was  open  in  front,  and  showed  a 
petticoat  of  a  different  color.  The  courtesans  did  not  wear  the 
stola.  They  wore  short  robes,  descending  only  to  the  feet.  When 
they  were  rich,  this  robe  was  of  silk  or  wool,  with  figures  of  gold.'2 
When  they  were  limited  in  fortune,  the  robe  was  of  cotton.3  The 
most  celebrated  woollens  were  those  of  Miletus  and  Selga  in  Asia 
Minor,  of  Altino  and  Terentum  in  Italy,  and  of  Grenada  in  Spain.* 
The  black  wools  of  Grenada  were  used  without  dyeing,  and  the 
scarlet  wools  of  Grenada  never  faded. 

All  the  elegant  women  of  antiquity  wore  stockings,  or  rather 
drawers  coming  down  close  over  the  feet.  At  home  they  wore 
white  satin  shoes,5  or  rather  slippers,6  embroidered  with  pearls.7 
Abroad  they  wore  galoshes  or  pattens,  with  wooden  soles,  the  up 
per  part  of  purple  cloth,  embroidered  with  gold.8  It  was  in  fact  a 
rule,  in  Greek  costume,  never  to  wear  purple  without  gold.9  They 
also  wore  abroad  boots  of  Venice10  leather,  which  came  so  high 
up  toward  the  knee,  as  to  dispense  with  stockings,  which  was  very 
elegant. 

and  third  century,  and  principally  from  St.  Cyprian  and  Tertullian,  the  details  of 
the  domestic  life  of  the  freedwomen.  We  should  remark  that  the  passages  of 
their  books,  which  we  cite,  are  strictly  applicable  to  our  subject,  because,  in 
censuring  the  different  details  of  this  elaborate  dress,  they  strove  to  turn  Chris 
tian  women  from  it,  as  being  excessive,  and  only  used  by  courtesans.  This  is 
what  the  fathers  say  repeatedly ;  but  we  limit  ourselves  to  transcribing  these 
words  of  St.  Cyprian :  "  Fugiant  castse  virgines  et  pudicae  incertaruna  cultus, 
habitus  impudicarum,  lupanarium  insignia,  ornamenta  meretricum."  (D.  Cyprian, 
de  habit,  virgin.,  p.  177.) 

1  Tertul.  de  pall.,  cap.  iv. 

2  D.  Cyprian,  de  habit,  virgin.,  p.  177.  —  De  lapsis,  p.  191. 

3  Tertullian  speaks  of  trees,  which  the  Indians  spun,  which  clearly  designates 
cotton.     "Si  at)  initio  rerum  et  Milesii  oves  tonderent,  Seres  arbores  nerent." 
(Tertul.  de  cult,  feminar.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  i.) 

*  Tertul.  de  pall.,  cap.  iii. 

6  Pes  malus  in  nivea  semper  coletur  aluta. 

(Ovid,  de  arte  amandi,  lib.  iii.) 
Aut  mulleolum  inducit  calceum. 

(Tertul.  de  pall.,  cap.  iv.) 

6  The  use  of  pearls  for  embroidering  shoes  came  from  the  East.     The  Roman 
ladies,  who  saw  them  for  the  first  time  on  the  Parthians,  were  astonished  at  such 
magnificence,  says  Tertullian.  (De  cult,  feminar.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  vii.) 

7  Tertullian  says  that  the  Roman  ladies,  to  be  more  free,  threw  aside  the  pat 
tens.     "  Crepidulam  ejeravere."  (Tertul.  de  pall.,  cap.  iv.) 

8  Tertul.  de  idolatr.,  cap.  viii.         9  Tertul.,  de  pall.,  cap.  iv.        10  Ibid.,  cap.  v. 


268  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Such  very  nearly  and  generally,  with  earrings  set  with  precious 
stones,1  with  many  chains  around  the  neck,  anci  many  rings  on  the 
ringers,  was  the  costume  of  the  elegant  courtesans  of  Rome  or 
Athens.  We  have  already  seen  that  they  never  lost  a  chance  of 
appearing  in  a  carriage,  as  this  brought  them  nearer  to  the  customs 
of  noble  women.2 

As  to  the  care  of  the  person,  it  was  extreme.  The  bath  was  for 
all,  men  and  women,  an  every-day  affair.  What  does  not  suit  our 
ideas,  not  only  the  courtesans,  but  ladies  of  society,  and  even  young 
girls,  went  to  the  public  baths,  and  appeared  in  the  water  before  all 
the  world,  which  would  be  incredible,  if  we  did  not  read  it  in  St. 
Cyprian.3  It  is  true  that  the  bath  was  part  of  the  hygienic  rules  of 
the  ancients.  They  bathed  as  regularly  as  they  ate,  and  the  univer 
sality  of  the  custom  removed  all  malicious  ideas.  Independently 
of  the  baths  of  the  city,  they  bathed  in  summer  in  the  Tiber.  It 
appears  that  respectable  people  used  the  river  as  a  matter  of  prefer 
ence.  A  good  swimmer  was  at  Rome  a  notable  man  with  the 
women.  Horace  cites  a  lover  of  Lydia,  whose  passion  made  him 
forget  his  baths  in  the  Tiber ; 4  and  he  advises  Asteria  to  turn  a  deaf 
ear  to  the  proposals  of  a  knight,  although  he  was  the  best  swimmer 
of  the  republic.5  Suetonius,  after  recounting  at  great  length  the 
dexterity  of  Caligula  in  many  exercises,  stops  short  to  make  this 
singular  reflection:  "  It  was  always  a  matter  of  surprise  that  this 
prince  did  not  know  how  to  swim."  6 

1  Tertullian  reproaches  Alexander   for  having  had  his  ears   pierced   like   a 
woman.   (Ibid.,  cap.  iv.)  As  to  chains  and  other  jewelry  the  testimony  is  abun 
dant.  (D.  Cyprian,  de  lapsis,  p.  177.) 

2  We  have  mentioned  above  that  Catullus  was  obliged  to  lend  his  litter  to  the 
mistress  of  Varus.     Tertullian  censures  the  noble  ladies  of  his  time  for  giving  up 
theirs  to  appear  in  the  streets  on  foot.  (De  pall.,  cap.  iv.) 

3  D.  Cyprian,  de  habit,  virgin.,  p.  179.     Spartian,  in  his  Life  of  Adrian,  says 
that  that  emperor  ordained  that  the  baths  of  the  two  sexes  should  be  separate. 
Julius  Capitolinus  reports  that  M.  Antoninus  did  the  same.     Ovid  has  pointed  out 
the  inconvenience  of  mixed  baths  in  this  verse : 

Celant  furtivos  balnea  mixta  jocos. 

(Ovid  de  arte  amandi,  lib.  iii.) 
*  Cur  timet  flavum  Tiberim  tangere  ? 

(Horat,  Carm.,  lib.  i.,  od.  viii.,  v.  8.) 
6  Nee  quisquam  citus  oeque 
Tusco  denatat  alveo. 

(Horat.,  Carm.,  lib.  iii.,  od.  vii.,  v.  27,  28.) 

•Atque  hie  tam  docilis  ad  caetera,  natare  nesciit.  (Sueton.  Tranquil.,  C.  Csesar, 
Caligula,  cap.  liv.) 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  269 

During  the  bath,  the  women,  who  prided  themselves  on  their 
elegance,  had  themselves  rubbed  with  perfumed  soap.  It  appears 
that  the  consumption  of  soap  by  some  of  them  was  considerable  ; 
for  Demetrius  Poliorcetes,  having  gained  a  pitched  battle  against 
Menelas,  brother  of  Ptolemy,  during  the  long  wars  of  the  succes 
sors  of  Alexander,  imposed  upon  the  Athenians,  who  had  surren 
dered  at  discretion,  a  fine  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  talents  to  buy 
soap  *  for  the  fair  Lamia,  his  mistress,  whom  he  had  found  among 
the  baggage  of  the  conquered.  After  the  soap  came  precious  oint 
ments,  with  which  the  coquettes  had  their  bodies  rubbed  to  make 
the  skin  soft  and  fragrant,2  and  their  custom  was  during  the  heat  of 
the  day  to  powder  their  bodies  with  an  astringent  powder,  which 
possessed  the  double  advantage  of  drying  the  skin,  and  giving  to 
the  flesh  firmness  without  being  hard,  and  elasticity  without  being 
soft.8 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  the  living  of  a  Greek  or  Roman  courte 
san  of  some  celebrity  cost  very  dear;  and  also  that  it  was  generally 
paid  for  by  some  one  person.  According  to  the  expression  of  one 
of  them,  this  was  called  having  a  friend,  and  being  under  obligation 
to  him.*  Moreover,  the  sons  of  wealthy  families,  who  were  bold 
enough  to  approach  them,  generally  left  in  their  hands  the  better 
part  of  their  fortunes.5  Catullus,  in  speaking  of  Lesbia,  with  whom 
he  had  a  quarrel,  uses  an  expression,  the  energy  of  which  requires 
no  comment.  He  says  that  she  peeled  the  magnanimous  posterity 
of  Remus.6 

This  brings  us  to  speak  of  the  twenty-three  odes,  addressed  to 
courtesans,  which  are  found  in  the  works  of  Horace.  The  poet, 

1  Plutarch,  Demetrius,  cap.  xxvii. 
2Tertul.  de  virgin,  veland.,  cap.  xii. 
3  Plutarch.  Sympos.,  lib.  i.,  quest,  vi. 

*  This  was  the  reply  of  Theodota  to  Socrates  in  their  interview.  See  note  to 
page  204. 

5  Horace  speaks  in  these  terms  of  the  kind  of  terror,  with  which  the  beauty  of 
Barina  inspired  the  wealthy  families  : 

Te  suis  matres  metuunt  juvencis 
Te  senes  parci,  miserasque  nuper 
Virgines  nuptse,  tua  ne  retardet 
Aura  maritos. 

(Horat,  Carm.,  lib.  ii.,  od.  viii.,  v.  21-24.) 
6  Nunc  in  quadriviis  et  angiportis 
Glubit  magnanimos  Remi  nepotis. 

(Catul  ,  Carm.  Iviii.) 


2/O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

who  was  not  very  rich,  used  his  verses,  as  far  as  he  could,  as  money. 
Unfortunately,  the  fair  freedwomen,  whom  he  has  immortalized, 
bore  a  slight  resemblance  to  Chrysala,  and«didn't  live  on  fine 
speeches  ;  with  one  exception,  however,  who  seems  never  to  have 
asked  Horace  for  anything  but  verses.  See  also  with  what  grati 
tude  he  speaks  of  her  !  In  an  ode  to  Lycea,  he  blames  her  for  hav 
ing  grown  so  old,  while  Cinara  died  in  the  flower  of  youth.1  In  an 
ode  to  Venus,  he  speaks  with  rapture  of  the  reign  of  the  good  Ci 
nara.2  These  eulogies  are  very  touching,  until  we  find  an  explana 
tion  of  them  in  his  epistle  to  his  gardener,  where  he  recalls  with 
satisfaction  his  having  in  former  times  pleased  the  rapacious  Cinara, 
without  having  had  to  pay  for  it.s 

It  remains  for  us  to  speak  of  the  political  part  which  these  cour 
tesans  played  in  Greece  and  Italy. 

There  were  two  courtesans  who  enjoyed  immense  political  power 
at  Athens  and  Rome :  Aspasia,  mistress  of  Pericles,  and  Praecia, 
mistress  of  Cethegus.  Some  others,  as  Thargelia,  Theodota,  Ti- 
mandra,  Lais,  and  Flora,  although  of  less  elevated  position,  never 
theless  deserve  mention,  for  the  relations  they  had  with  the  most 
eminent  men  of  their  times. 

Thargelia  was  an  Ionian,  mistress  of  King  Xerxes,  who  gained 
him  many  partisans  among  the  cities  of  Greece.4  Theodota,  of 
whom  we  have  already  spoken,  was  a  beautiful  woman,  whom  So 
crates  went  to  see,  on  the  strength  of  her  reputation,  and  who  re 
turned  his  visit.5  The  history  of  Timandra  is  connected  with  the 
exile  and  tragic  end  of  Alcibiades.  When  he  was  for  the  last  time 
banished  by  the  Athenians,  he  retired  to  one  of  his  castles  in  Phry- 
gia.  Timandra  followed  him.  There  Lysander,  who  feared  his 
return,  had  v  him  assassinated.  Timandra,  assisted  by  her  slaves, 
took  the  body,  washed  the  stains  that  covered  it,  wrapped  and 

1 ...  Cinarae  breves 
Annos  fata  dederunt, 
Servatura  diu  parem 
Cornicis  vetulaa  temporibus  Lyceae. 

(Horat.,  Carm.,  lib.  iv.,  od.  xiii.,  v.  22-25.) 
8  Qualis  eram  bonae 

Sub  regno  Cinarae.   (Ibid.,  od.  i.,  v.  2,  3.) 
8  Quern  sis  immunem  Cinarae  placuisse  rapaci. 

(Horat.  Epist.,  lib.  i.,  epist.  xiv.,  v.  33.) 
4  Plutarch,  Pericles,  cap.  xxiv.  6Xenophon,  Memorab.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xi. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  2/1 

buried  it  in  the  finest  cloths  she  had.1  Lais,  the  Corinthian,  was 
her  daughter.2  Flora  was  the  favorite  of  Pompey.  Geminius,  a 
noble  Roman  and  friend  of  Pompey,  having  long  followed  her  up, 
she  replied  to  him  one  day,  to  get  rid  of  him,  that  she  belonged 
to  Pompey,  and  must  have  his  permission  to  listen  to  Geminius, 
believing  that  Pompey,  \vho  loved  her,  and  whom  she  loved, 
would  not  consent.  Pompey,  solicited  by  Geminius,  and  relying 
on  Flora's  love,  gave  his  consent,  under  the  belief  that  it  would 
amount  to  nothing.  From  levity  or  vexation,  Flora  listened  to 
Geminius.  Pompey,  indignant,  never  saw  or  spoke  to  her  again  ; 
and  Flora,  overwhelmed  with  regret  and  despair,  attempted  to  kill 
herself.3  Flora  was  of  such  majestic  beauty,  that  Csecilius  Metellus, 
who  ornamented  the  temple  of  Castor  and  Pollux  with  pictures, 
placed  her  portrait  there.* 

Aspasia  was  the  most  celebrated  courtesan  of  antiquity.  She  was 
of  Miletus.5  *  Her  wit  and  beauty  gave  her  so  high  a  position  at 
Athens,  that  she  managed  all  the  affairs  of  Greece.  She  received 
at  her  house  all  the  philosophers  and  poets  of  her  time,  and  her 
visitors  even  took  their  wives  to  see  her  —  a  strange  thing  to  believe, 
since  we  know  that  she  kept  a  house  of  debauch.6  Socrates  went 
often  to  see  her,  and  Plato  writes,  in  his  dialogue  entitled  Menexe- 
nus,  that  many  Athenians  of  distinction  went  to  learn  good  lan 
guage  from  her.7  Pericles  excused  himself  for  seeing  her  every  day, 
because  she  guided  him  in  managing  the  affairs  of  Greece.  The 
general  belief  was  that  he  loved  her  passionately.8  The  comedies 
of  that  day  called  her  the  new  Omphale  and  the  new  Dejanira,3 
and  all  believed  that  it  was  Aspasia  who  persuaded  Pericles  to  make 
war  against  the  Samnians,  in  aid  of  the  inhabitants  of  Miletus. 

Praecia  was  at  Rome  in  the  time  of  Pompey,  Lucullus,  and  Cethe- 
gus,  what  Aspasia  was  at  Athens  in  the  time  of  Pericles.  She  took 
care  to  have  no  relations  except  with  eminent  men,  and  to  use  her 
influence  for  the  benefit  of  those  whom  she  distinguished  with  her 
favor. 10  She  was  openly  the  mistress  of  Cethegus,  who  then  man 
aged  the  affairs  of  the  republic,  and  all  the  young  men  of  any 

1  Plutarch,  Alcibiades,  cap.  xxxix.  *  Ibid. 

3  Plutarch,  Pompey,  cap.  ii.  4  Ibid. 

5  Plutarch,  Pericles,  cap.  xxiv.  6  Ibid. 

7  Plato,  Menexen.  8  Plutarch,  Pericles,  cap.  xxiv. 

9  Ibid.  10  Plutarch,  Lucullus,  cap.  vi. 


2/2  HISTORY    OF    THE 

ambition  or  aspirations  made  assiduous  court  to  her,  as  one  who 
could  make  or  unmake  them.  Lucullus,  who  wanted  the  government 
of  Sicily,  and  the  command  in  the  war  against  Mithridates,  succeeded 
in  winning  her  by  his  wit,  and,  above  all,  by  the  magnificence  of  his 
presents.1  Praecia  praised  him  to  Cethegus;  Cethegus  praised  him  to 
the  whole  city,  and  Lucullus  had  the  government  he  desired,  (a) 

1  Plutarch,  Lucullus,  ch.  iv. 

(a)  Poeta  nascitur,  orator  fit.  Horace  was  a  born  poet,  and  his  "rhythmic 
money  "  passed  as  current  coin  even  with  the  "  rapacious  Cinara."  Many  of  our 
Radical  high  officials,  legislative  and  executive,  are  not  born  poets,  nor  could  any 
amount  of  study  and  preparation  Jit  them  for  oratory.  But  native  shrewdness,  or 
the  high  culture  of  New  England  civilization,  has  (for  some  of  them)  supplied  the 
lack  of  poesy  and  oratory,  and  made  their  official  position  and  influence  pass  as 
current  with  the  fair  and  frail  portion  of  the  Government  machinery  at  Washing 
ton,  as  Horace's  verses  did  with  Cinara. 

The  system  of  employing  female  clerks  in  the  Government  offices  at  Washing 
ton,  originating  during  the  Civil  War,  doubtless  sprang  from  the  purest  and  loftiest 
sentiments.  Certain  it  is,  that  in  their  distress,  consequent  upon  the  loss  of  their 
natural  protectors,  it  has  afforded  relief  to  some  of  the  best,  purest,  and  noblest 
women  of  the  land  —  women  who  would  adorn  any  society,  and  of  whom  any 
country  might  be  proud. 

The  use  was  noble ;  the  abuse  infamous. 

But  it  was  not  long  before  Radical  ingenuity  discovered  in  that  system  a  way 
of  transferring  Lesbia's  peeling  process  from  themselves  to  that  gentleman  with 
full  pockets,  who  is  known  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  as  '•'•Uncle  Sam." 

As  prominent  in  this  business,  the  concurrent  testimony  of  the  scandal-mongers 
of  the  metropolis,  and  of  the  young  bloods,  who  have  encountered  his  rivalry, 
points  to  a  New  England  legislator,  whose  boast  is  that  his  virility  has  not  been 
impaired  by  age  or  strong  drink. 

The  following  verses  would  not  entitle  their  author  to  rank  among  the  poets 
with  Horace.  But  they  are  not  unworthy  of  notice  in  a  history  of  the  working 
and  burgher  classes.  For,  they  secured  for  their  author  a  lucrative  and  import 
ant  office,  involving  the  responsibility  of  the  expenditure  of  a  very  large  amount 
of  the  taxes  paid  into  the  treasury  of  "  Uncle  Sam  "  by  the  working  and  burgher 
classes.  Moreover,  they  illustrate  a  phase  of  governmental  administration  under 
the  Radical  regime,  as  worthy  of  the  notice  of  history  as  Proecia's  influence  in 
securing  for  Lucullus  the  government  of  Sicily  and  the  command  of  the  war 
against  Mithridates. 

It  happened  thus  : 

At  a  period  of  the  late  Civil  War,  when  business  was  paralyzed,  the  writer  found 
himself  in  debt,  with  mortgages  hanging  over  his  property,  and  likely  soon  to  be 
foreclosed,  unless,  by  some  lucky  chance,  he  could  raise  the  money  to  meet  his 
maturing  obligations.  He  went  to  Washington,  called  on  President  Lincoln, 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  2/3 

and  told  him  of  his  difficulties.  In  a  moment  of  care  and  irritation,  Mr.  Lincoln 
gruffly  said,  "  Do  you  expect  me  to  take  cognizance  of  every  man's  mortgages  in 
the  United  States  ?  "  Soon,  however,  recovering  his  customary  good-humor,  he 
told  his  visitor  to  go  and  consult  his  member  of  Congress,  decide  upon  what  he 
wanted,  and  then  he,  Mr.  Lincoln,  would  do  what  he  could  to  aid  him. 

He  called  upon  his  member  of  Congress,  who  said  :  "  What  female  influence 
can  you  bring  to  bear  ?  "  He  replied  :  "  What  has  that  to  do  with  this  matter  ?  " 
The  answer  was,  "  Everything.  Now-a-days,  offices,  contracts,  honors,  all  are 
controlled  and  disposed  of  by  and  through  the  women." 

Despairing  of  success  through  any  of  the  Praecias  of  the  period,  the  poet  went 
sadly  back  to  his  home  in  New  England.  There  his  good  genius  inspired  the 
following  verses,  copies  of  which  he  sent  back  to  Washington.  By  return  mail 
Jie  was  notified  that,  if  he  would  not  publish  them,  he  could  have  anything  he 
wanted.  He  got  what  he  wanted,  and  was  enabled  to  pay  off  his  mortgages. 

"  My  friend,  if  you  will  just  take  a  look 
Between  the  leaves  of  the  great  and  good  Book, 
You  will  find  that  a  woman,  Delilah  by  name, 
Played  oft"  on  old  Samson  a  terrible  game. 
She  bothered  and  teased,  and  then  she  did  cry, 
'  Tell  rne  now  truly  where  your  strength  doth  lie.' 
At  length  the  old  fool,  I  vow  and  declare, 
Told  his  Delilah  that  it  lay  in  his  hair. 
Old  Samson  then,  his  Delilah  to  please, 
Laid  his  head  down  upon  her  two  knees. 
He  there  fell  asleep,  among  petties  and  frocks, 
And  in  that  condition  she  cut  oft"  his  locks. 
The  old  man  awakes,  and  finds  out  at  length 
That  by  a  pretty  woman  he  was  shorn  of  his  strength. 
The  next  thing  in  order  took  him  by  surprise ; 
For  she  called  in  the  Philistines,  who  put  out  his  eyes. 
So  honest  old  Abe  took  the  President's  chair, 
With  two  good  eyes,  and  a  nice  head  of  hair. 
His  Delilah  played  with  him  '  poor  pussy •'  and  '  cat, 
Till  he  was  bald  as  an  eagle,  and  blind  as  a  bat. 
To  Congress,  too,  we  have  sent  of  the  best, 
From  the  North  and  the  East,  the  South  and  the  West : 
They  've  played  with  their  Delilahs  the  '  ass  '  and  the  '  goose,1 
Till  the  hair  on  their  heads  is  getting  quite  loose. 
The  cabinet  officers,  too,  take  a  nap, 
Each  one  with  his  head  in  his  Delilah's  lap  j 
With  eyes  upturned  to  her  beauty  so  fair, 
While  she  keeps  a-clipping  away  at  his  hair." 

The  above  is  but  a  fragment  of  the  mortgage-lifting  verses ;  my  informant  who 


2/4  HISTORY    OF    THE 

furnished  me  with  them,  himself  a  Radical  and.  an  office-holder,  not  being  able  to 
remember  the  other  lines,  or  to  obtain  a  copy.  He  also  gave  me  some  details  of 
the  private  and  official  profligacy  prevailing  at  Washington  during  the  war;  and 
especially  in  the  Interior  Department  under  Secretaries  Harlan  and  Usher.  If 
only  a  small  part  of  what  he  narrated  was  true,  the  picture  is  appalling  to  the 
working  and  burgher  classes,  who  pay  the  taxes,  which  now  go  to  the  support  of 
the  men  (and  their  MISTRESSES)  who  seek  to  unify  the  United  States  of 
America  into  one  nation,  as  the  Roman  Empire  was  unified  under  Caligula, 
Claudius,  and  Nero.  (See  Senator  Wilson's  article  on  unification,  and  Father 
Hecker's  reply  in  the  Catholic  World  for  April,  1871.) 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

THE    BANDITS. 

THE  pirates  and  bandits  of  antiquity  were  runaway  slaves,  in 
open  war  with  their  masters.  It  is  well,  before  sketching 
their  history,  to  correct  some  false  ideas,  which  our  morals  might 
suggest  as  to  the  cause  of  these  escapes. 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  believe  that  the  ancients  had  the 
notion  of  the  equality  of  men,  and  that  this  notion  was  constantly 
impelling  the  slaves  toward  liberty.  With  the  exception  of  the 
Essenes,  who  were  a  schismatic  sect  among  the  Jews,  and  whose 
basis  of  association  was  the  dogma  of  equality,  all  antiquity  re 
mained  completely  strangers  to  the  notion  of  human  equality  until 
the  coming  of  Christianity ;  and  when  Jesus  Christ  announced  it  as 
a  part  of  his  doctrine,  he  uttered  a  sentiment,  for  his  times,  rash 
and  factious ;  in  opposition  to  all  the  adopted  moral  creeds,  and 
which  was  calculated  to  offend,  and  did  offend  the  pagans. 

The  two  philosophers  and  the  poet,  who  most  powerfully  in 
fluenced  the  ancient  world,  Homer,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  were 
unanimous  in  considering  men  as  naturally  divided  into  two  classes: 
.those  who  were  born  to  command,  and  those  who  were  born  to 
obey — the  masters  and  the  slaves.  Homer  says,  in  so  many  words, 
that  God  gave  slaves  only  half  a  soul.1  In  his  treatise  on  law, 
Plato  cites  and  relies  on  this  testimony  of  Homer.  In  the  dialogue 
entitled  Alcibiades,  he  makes  Socrates  ask  this  question  :  "  Is  it  in 

1  See  page  125. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  2/5 

the  nobility,  or  in  the  common  people,  that  we  find  the  better  na 
ture?  "  to  which  he  makes  Alcibiades  reply  :  "  Beyond  question,  in 
the  nobility."  *  Aristotle,  for  his  part,  presents  the  question  of  the 
inequality  of  the  races  with  remarkable  clearness  and  candor. 
"  Among  all  created  beings,"  he  says,  in  his  treatise  on  politics, 
"some  are  born  to  obey,  and  others  to  command."  2  Farther  on 
he  says,  "Nature  itself  has  marked  with  different  characters  the 
gentlemen  and  the  slaves. ' ' 3 

Pagan  antiquity  had  no  other  ideas  on  this  subject.  Cato  the 
elder,  whose  slaves  always  boasted  that  he  was  a  good  master,  sold 
them  when  they  were  old  and  broken  down,  which  caused  Plutarch 
to  say,  that  he  would  never  have  the  hard-heartedness  to  abandon 
an  ox  or  a  slave,  who  had  labored  and  worked  for  him,  to  the  end 
of  their  days.4  It  should  be  noted  that  Plutarch  said  this  in  an  ex 
citement  of  benevolence  and  indignation. 

On  their  part,  the  slaves  of  antiquity  never  dreamed,  in  their 
revolts,  of  invoking  any  idea  of  human  equality.  They  found  slave 
ry  very  just  and  reasonable  in  itself;  they  only  tried  sometimes  to 
see  whether  they  could  not  impose  it  on  others,  («)  in  place  of  being 
subject  to  it  themselves.  The  facts  presently  cited  prove  this  com- 

1  Plato,  Alcibiades,  i.  2  Aristot.  politica,  lib.  i.,  cap.  ii.,  g  8. 

3  Ibid.,  g  14.  *  Plutarch,  Cato  Major,  cap.  v. 

(a]  Mr.  Calhoun,  in  the  speech  from  which  we  have  quoted  in  our  Preface, 
said  prophetically  :  "  We  would  soon  find  the  present  condition  of  the  two  races 
reversed.  They  (the  negroes)  and  their  Northern  allies,  would  be  the  masters, 
and  we  the  slaves." 

lias  not  this  prophecy  been  literally  fulfilled?  If  deprivation  of  civil  rights 
be  slavery,  then  have  the  loyal,  as  well  as  the  disloyal,  whites  of  the  South  been 
enslaved.  They,  the  loyal  whites,  who  furnished,  or  had  taken  from  them, 
quartermaster's  and  other  supplies  for  the  United  States  army,  were  denied,  by 
the  acts  of  Congress  of  the  4th  July,  1864,  and  2ist  February,  1867,  their  civil 
rights  of  property  —  rights  guaranteed  to  them  by  that  clause  of  the  Constitution, 
which  provides  that  private  property  shall  not  be  taken  for  public  use  without 
just  compensation.  In  the  use  made  of  the  freedmen,  to  enslave  and  pauperize 
the  whites,  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  radicalism  were  even  more  strikingly  mani 
fested,  than  in  emancipating  the  slaves,  to  make  "  free  labor  more  profitable  than 
slave  labor."  In  fact,  this  thing  called  radicalism  is  an  unholy  alliance  of  im 
perialism  and  brigandage,  masquerading  under  the  disguise  and  assumed  name 
of  Republicanism.  Its  politico- economical  theory  is  that  "free  labor  is  cheaper 
and  more  profitable  than  slave  labor."  But,  as  practically  illustrated  in  Georgia 


276  HISTORY    OF    THE 

pletely.  We  mention  but  one  now,  but  it  will  suffice  to  prepare 
for  an  understanding  of  the  others. 

Twelve  hundred  Roman  citizens,  that  is  to  say,  twelve  hundred 
men,  more  or  less  rich  and  educated,  of  fortune  and  family,  were  made 
prisoners  in  the  second  Punic  war,  carried  to  Greece  by  the  mer 
chants,  sold  as  slaves  in  the  Peloponnesus,  and  used  by  their  masters 
in  the  work  of  the  fields.  If  ever  slaves  ought  to  have  had  the  sen 
timent  of  human  equality,  certainly  these  should,  who  were  not 
born  in  slavery,  and  who,  in  regaining  their  liberty,  would  only 
have  been  regaining  what  had  been  violently  taken  from  them. 
But  see  what  they  did. 

They  had  long  been  slaves  when  the  league  of  Achaian  cities 
asked  succor  from  the  Romans  against  the  usurpations  of  Philip, 
King  of  Macedon.  T.  Quintius  Flaminius  led  some  legions  to  their 
aid.  Arrived  in  Greece,  he  vanquished  the  Macedonians.  He 
was  master  of  the  country,  when  his  troops  one  day  encountered 
the  twelve  hundred  Roman  citizens,  who  were  digging  the  earth. 
The  soldiers  and  the  slaves  threw  themselves  into  each  other's  arms, 
as  compatriots,  neighbors,  friends,  kinsmen,  brothers.  But  the  idea 
never  occurred  to  one  of  them,  either  soldier  or  slave,  that  the 
slavery  of  twelve  hundred  Roman  citizens  was  a  monstrous  thing. 
When  they  had  embraced,  they  separated,  the  soldiers  resuming 
their  pikes  and  the  slaves  their  hoes ;  and,  as  this  meeting  made  a 
great  noise  in  Greece,  the  grateful  Achaian  cities  raised  a  common 
fund,  purchased  the  twelve  hundred  slaves,  and  made  a  present  of 
them  to  the  general  of  the  Roman  army.  He,  to  whom  they  be 
longed  from  that  moment,  and  who  might  have  employed  them  on 
his  own  estates,  was  pleased  on  his  return  to  emancipate  them  ; 
which,  however,  did  not  restore  them  to  their  primitive  condition  of 
Roman  citizens,  but  placed  them  in  the  class  of  freedmen,  and  im 
posed  on  them  the  obligations  and  duties  of  clients.1 

Thus,  as  we  have  said,  never  in  pagan  antiquity  did  our  modern 
ideas  of  equality  and  the  rights  of  man  germinate  in  the  mind  of 

under  Governor  Bullock,  in  South  Carolina  by  Governor  Scott,  and  in  North 
Carolina  by  Governor  Holden,  that  theory  would  be  more  correctly  rendered 
thus :  "  It  is  more  profitable  to  plunder  the   State  Treasury  and  the  tax-payers, 
like  bandits,  than  to  have  slaves  to  feed  and  clothe,  as  masters." 
1  Plutarch,  Flaminius,  cap.  xiii. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  277 

master  or  slave.  The  three  most  eminent  men  among  the  poets 
and  philosophers,  Homer,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  believed  ingenu 
ously,  profoundly,  in  the  duality  of  human  nature.  No  one  in  all 
the  West,  not  even  among  the  slaves,  maintained  or  proposed  a  con 
trary  doctrine ;  and  it  is,  under  the  impression  of  this  general  ob 
livion  of  human  dignity,  that  we  must  study  the  revolts  of  slaves 
among  the  ancients,  and  their  organization  into  bands  of  pirates 
and  bands  of  thieves. 

If  we  confine  ourselves  to  Roman  history,  we  find  ten  revolts  of 
slaves  more  or  less  serious.  Titus  Livius  mentions  six,  without  giv 
ing  their  details.1  The  sixth  was  that  of  Eunus  the  Syrian,  re 
ported  at  length  by  Diodorus  of  Sicily.  The  seventh  was  that  of 
Athenion,  which  Florus  also  relates  fully.  The  eighth,  which  was 
the  most  celebrated  and  formidable,  was  that  of  Spartacus.  Plu 
tarch,  Florus,  and  Appian  have  related  all  the  circumstances.  The 
ninth,  of  small  importance,  broke  out  in  Sicily,  during  the  civil  wars 
of  Pompey  and  Caesar.  Appian,  who  mentions  it,  adds  that  it  gave 
rise  to  the  formation  of  a  body  of  military,  or  guards,  who  after 
ward  served  to  watch  over  the  safety  of  Rome.2  The  tenth,  which 
broke  out  in  Italy  under  Tiberius,  is  related  by  Tacitus.3 

There  were  principally  three  causes  that  impelled  slaves  to  revolt : 
tampering  with  them  by  the  chiefs  of  parties  in  the  civil  wars,  ex 
cessive  harshness  of  the  masters,  and  the  failure  to  execute  the  regu 
lations  relative  to  labor. 

In  the  turbulent  government  of  ancient  Rome,  there  was  always 
some  conspiracy  hatching  or  miscarrying,  and  poor  Rome  had 
always  need  for  the  spy  and  the  executioner.  The  first  ideaof  con 
spirators,  we  may  well  believe,  was  to  incite  an  insurrection  of  the 
slaves,  (a)  The  continual  wars  had  thinned  out  the  free  popula 
tion,  and  given  the  slave  population  a  formidable  preponderance. 
Seneca  relates  that  in  a  discussion  in  the  senate  on  the  sumptuary 

1  The  first  in  lib.  Hi.,  cap.  xv. ;  the  second  in  lib.  iv.,  cap.  Ixv. ;  the  third  in 
lib.  xxxii.,  cap.  xxvi. ;  the  fourth  in  lib.  xxxiii.,  cap.  xxii. ;  the  fifth  in  lib.  xxxix., 
cap.  xxix. ;  the  sixth  in  the  summary  of  lib.  Ivii. 

2  Appian.  de  bell,  civil.,  lib.  v.,  cap.  cxxxii. 

3  Tacit.  Annal..  lib.  iv.,  cap.  xxvii. 

(a)  So,  after  all,  it  appears  that  JOHN  BROWN'S  SOUL  was  not  born,  nor  cradled 
on  Plymouth  Rock,  but  has  been  "  marching  on,"  like  the  Wandering  Jew,  ever 
since  the  days  of  Marius  and  Catiline. 


278  HISTORY    OF    THE 

laws,  it  having  been  proposed  to  require  all  the  slaves  to  wear  an 
uniform  dress,  the  reply  was  that  they  must  guard  against  giving  to 
the  slaves  a  means  of  counting  their  masters.1  While  the  quaestor, 
Curtius  Lupus,  was  putting  down  the  tenth  revolt  of  the  slaves, 
which  broke  out  in  Italy  in  the  24th  year  of  the  Christian  era, 
Rome  trembled,  says  Tacitus,  at  the  idea  of  the  frightful  multitude 
of  slaves,  and  the  small  number  of  freemen  that  she  contained.2 

Party  chiefs  endeavored,  as  we  have  said,  to  attract  the  slaves  to 
their  ranks  by  offering  them  freedom.  But  we  must  add,  in  com 
pliment  to  the  good  sense  of  the  slaves,  that  they  did  not  always 
listen  to  such  propositions.  During  the  civil  wars,  Harms  having, 
by  sound  of  trumpet,  promised  liberty  to  all  the  slaves,  who  would 
enroll  under  his  banner,  only  three  presented  themselves.3  (rt) 

1  Seneca,  de  dementia,  lib.  i.,  cap.  xxiv. 

2  Tacit.  Annal.,  lib.  iv.,  cap.  xxvii.  3  Plutarch,  C.  Marius. 

(a)  The  good  conduct  and  fidelity  of  the  Southern  slaves,  through  the  four 
long  years  of  the  Civil  War,  won  for  them,  deservedly,  the  gratitude  and  good 
will  of  the  Southern  whites,  and  astonished  the  Northern  humanitarians.  In 
thousands  of  cases,  when  their  masters  were  in  the  army,  they  were  left  alone, 
without  a  white  man  on  the  place,  with  none  but  women  and  children  to  direct 
or  control  them.  Nobly  —  yes,  nobly  is  the  proper  word  —  did  they  respond 
to  the  confidence  reposed  in  them  by  their  masters.  Their  conduct  was  uniformly 
good ;  even  better  than  when  their  masters  were  at  home.  They  seemed  to  feel 
that  the  confidence  reposed  in  them  had  put  them  "  on  good  behavior,"  and  we 
have  never  yet  heard  of  the  first  instance  in  which  that  confidence  was  abused. 
Even. since  the  war,  outrages  on  their  part  have  been  the  exception,  not  the  rule  ; 
and  the  exceptional  cases  are  directly  traceable  to  the  pernicious  influence  of  the 
Freedmen's  Bureau,  the  carpet-baggers,  and  the  scalawags,  who,  for  political 
purposes,  have  sought  to  excite  a  "  race  hatred  "  between  them  and  the  (so- 
called)  rebels,  by  urging  them  to  arson  and  other  crimes.  We  do  not  class  as 
outrages  petty  pilfering  and  stealing;  for  these  are  natural  and  unavoidable  con 
sequences  of  throwing  a  large  mass  of  slaves,  without  prevision  or  preparation, 
on  their  own  resources  for  a  support.  On  a  question  so  important  —  on  which 
such  strenuous  efforts  have  been  made,  and  so  much  public  money  spent,  to 
create  false  impressions  at  the  North,  for  party  purposes  —  it  is  fortunate  that  we 
can  add  the  unimpeachable  testimony  of  the  Rev.  J.  B.  Smith,  before  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Southern  Outrages.  (See  Senate  Document,  42d  Cong.,  1st  Sess., 
Report  No.  I,  pages  214-224.) 

Mr.  Smith  was  the  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Missions  of  the  Protestant  Episco 
pal  Church,  for  that  department  of  work  among  the  colored  people.  He  was 
requested  to  go  from  New  Jersey,  where  he  had  resided  up  to  1867,  to  the  South, 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  2/9 

Appian  lets  us  know  that  Catiline  was  contriving  a  slave  revolt, 
when  he  attempted  his  celebrated  conspiracy.1  The  first  and  third 
of  the  six  revolts  mentioned  by  Livy,  were  also  incited  by  conspira- 

to  establish  a  normal  school  for  the  purpose  of  educating  colored  people,  to  make 
them  competent  to  teach  their  own  race.  On  consultation  with  General  How 
ard,  the  latter  requested  him  to  go  to  North  Carolina.  He  went  there  in  Decem 
ber,  1867,  and  established  at  Raleigh  a  normal  school  for  the  education  of  colored 
teachers.  His  testimony  will  surely  be  taken  at  the  North.  He  said : 

"  With  regard  to  the  people  of  North  Carolina  —  and  I  have  had  a  great  deal 
of  intimate,  close  conversation  with  gentlemen  from  various  parts  of  the  State  — 
I  regard  them  as  an  extremely  kind  people  —  I  mean  kind  toward  the  colored  peo 
ple  ;  they  have  a  kindly  feeling  for  them ;  I  have  evidence  of  it  on  all  sides  in 
expressions  and  in  acts.  I  find  that  the  relationship,  which  formerly  existed  be 
tween  master  and  slave,  has  left  a  feeling  of  kindness  on  the  part  of  the  master 
toward  the  slave.  I  find  masters  continually  recognizing  the  old  relationship, 
and  aiding  and  assisting  their  former  slaves.  I  know  of  no  feeling,  upon  the 
part  of  any  one  in  North  Carolina,  that  I  have  ever  talked  with  and  met,  of 
antagonism  toward  the  colored  people. 

"  Question.  Have  you,  since  you  have  been  in  North  Carolina,  found  any 
prejudice  against  you,  or  unkindness  on  account  of  your  occupation  ? 

"  Answer.  I  have  not  found  any  unkindness  toward  me  among  the  people 
of  North  Carolina  ;  no  one  has  treated  me  unkindly. 

"  Question.  Have  you,  on  the  contrary,  met  with  personal  kindness  from  the 
people  there  ? 

"  Answer.  Yes,  sir ;  the  very  best  people  of  the  State,  all  through  the  com 
munity,  have  treated  me  with  the  utmost  kindness  ;  visited  my  family  and  myself. 

"  Question.  In  your  opinion,  is  it  perfectly  safe  for  any  man,  white  or  black,  to 
keep  a  colored  school  anywhere  in  that  State,  if  he  confines  himself  to  the  legiti 
mate  duties  of  his  profession  ? 

"  Answer.  That  is  my  opinion. 

"  Question.  With  perfect  safety  ? 

"  Answer.  I  think  so. 

"  Question.  Would  you  hesitate  to  establish  a  colored  school  in  any  portion  of 
the  State,  under  the  care  of  a  judicious  and  sensible  man  ? 

"  Answer.  Not  at  all. 

"  Question.  Would  you  think  his  life  and  personal  property  safe  ? 

"  Answer.  Perfectly. 

"  Question.  You  said  you  voted  for  General  Grant  in  the  last  election  ? 

"  Answer.  Yes,  sir. 

"  Question.  Have  you  had  any  conversation  with  Governor  Holden,  relative  to 
the  late  election  ? 

"  Answer.  I  have  had  several  conversations  with  him. 

1  Appian.  de  bell,  civil.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  ii. 


280  HISTORY    OF    THE 

tors ;  l  and  the  tenth,  reported  by  Tacitus,  was  instigated  by  Titus 
Curtisius,  an  old  soldier  of  the  praetorian  cohorts.2 

"  Question.  How  did  he  express  himself  in  regard  to  the  politics  of  those  who 
were  opposing  his  election  ? 

"  Answer.  I  had  a  conversation  with  him,  I  think,  last  April.  Colonel  Hay- 
man  was  in  charge  of  the  camp.  He  was  an  Episcopalian,  and  I  had  called  on 
him  to  pay  my  respects.  I  found  Mr.  Barringer,  Mr.  Kingsland,  Colonel  Hay- 
man,  and  Governor  Holden  together.  Mr.  Kingsland  was  connected  with  the 
North  Carolina  Land  Company.  He  was  talking  to  Governor  Holden  about  the 
great  injury  done  to  the  State  by  his  proclamation  —  that  it  kept  persons  from 
coming  into  the  State  to  buy  land.  The  proclamation  was  in  regard  to  certain 
outrages.  I  do  not  know  whether  at  that  time  he  had  declared  the  County  of 
Alamance  in  insurrection.  Mr.  Kingsland  was  talking  upon  that  subject  when 
I  went  in.  Governor  Holden  was  very  much,  excited  about  the  recall  of  the  United 
States  troops,  and  had  received  no  assurance  then  that  there  would  be  any  troops  to 
supply  their  place*  Well,  I  spoke  to  Governor  Holden,  and  said, '  Governor,  what 
distresses  me  is,  that  you  should  put  these  colored  men  up  for  Congress,  for  re 
sponsible  offices.  I  notice  in  my  work  among  these  people  that  there  is  a  great 
moral  injury  done  to  them  throughout  the  State  ;  the  effect  is  very  bad ;  it  un 
settles  them  ;  they  do  not  seem  to  be  disposed  to  go  to  any  regular  labor,  because 
they  are  looking  to  political  preferment.'  He  then  expressed  himself  in  regard 
to  the  colored  people,  and  said  that  Congress  had  seen  fit  to  pass  a  law, by  which 
they  were  admitted  to  seats  in  the  State  Legislature,  and  he  wanted  them  to  have 
some  of  the  same  themselves,  and,  therefore,  he  went  for  sending  them  to  Con 
gress.  Then  he  said  to  me,  or  rather  to  us  all,  '  Now,  if  the  Government  does 
not  send  these  troops,  I  shall  arm  the  colored  people.  I  can  control  by  my  word 
80,000  men.  I  can  go  to  the  convention  that  is  to  meet  here  next  week,  (a  Re 
publican  convention,)  and  control  them  by  a  word.'  I  remarked  at  the  same 
time,  *  That  is  dangerous  power —  very  dangerous  power  to  be  in  the  hands  of 
one  man.'  He  then  said  to  me,  in  the  presence  of  these  gentlemen,  '  What  is  to 
hinder  the  Ku-Klux  from  taking  you,  Dr.  Smith  ?  Are  you  not  afraid  ?  '  '  Not 
at  all,'  said  I.  Said  he,  '  There  is  nothing  to  hinder  them  from  taking  you  or 
any  other  Radical.'  Said  I,  '  Excuse  me,  but  that  is  not  my  name.  I  am  not 
a  Radical.'  Well,  then  he  went  on  to  say  that,  for  his  own  part,  in  his  opinion, 
General  Grant  would  hold  the  government  of  the  United  States,  no  matter  what 
the  election  was  in  1872 ;  that  he  desired  him  to  be  emperor,  and  his  son  to  succeed 
him  as  emperor. 

"  Question.  That  is,  that  he,  Governor  Holden,  wished  it  ? 

"  Answer.  That  he,  Governor  Holden,  wished  it. 

..."  There  is  one  thing  I  would  like  to  state.  I  asked  a  leading  member  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  of  North  Carolina,  knowing  him  to  be  a  man  of  prin- 

1  Hist.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xv.    Ibid.,  lib.  xxxii.,  cap.  xxvi. 

2  Tacitus,  Annales,  lib.  xiv.,  cap.  xxvi. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  28l 

The  severity  of  the  masters  was  also  a  powerful  cause  of  irrita 
tion  and  revolt ;  for,  until  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Adrian,  there 

ciple,  «  How  could  you  vote  for  the  Shoffner  bill  to  empower  the  Governor  of 
the  State  to  declare,  at  will,  a  county  to  be  in  insurrection,  if  none  existed  ?  '  — 
the  word  insurrection  being  a  well-defined  term.  He  said,  '  Oh,  we  passed  such 
a  law,  but  it  will  never  be  executed.'  Said  I,  'Then,  why  did  you  pass  it?  ' 
'Now,  doctor,'  said  he,  'it  is  necessary  to  hold  the  State  as  Republican  for  three 
or  four  years  longer,  and  the  passage  of  that  bill  was  necessary  to  enable  us  to 
hold  it: 

"  Question.  Give  his  name. 

"  Answer.  Augustus  S.  Seymour,  of  Cleveland  County. 

"Question.  Where  did  he  say  that? 

"  Answer.  In  the  legislature  that  passed  the  Shoffner  act  of  last  year." 

Are  our  Northern  readers  surprised  that  we  in  the  South,  who  have  always 
claimed  to  be  republicans,  should  not  like  that  kind  of  republicanism,  which 
requires  United  States  troops,  or  such  legislation  as  the  Shoffner  bill  of  North 
Carolina,  with  such  militia  as  that  of  Kirk  and  Bergen,  to  hold  the  State  as  Re 
publican  ?  That  they  may  realize  what  they  are  preparing  for  themselves  by 
supporting  the  men  who  in  Congress  support  such  men  as  Holden  of  North  Caro 
lina,  Scott  of  South  Carolina,  and  Bullock  of  Georgia,  and  voted  for  the  Shella- 
barger  Ku-Klux  Bill,  we  urge  them  to  ponder  well  this  testimony  of  a  Northern 
man,  whose  integrity  is  unquestionable,  and  whose  opportunities  of  knowing  the 
truth  are  so  abundant.  He  was  asked  : 

"  Does  this  (his  connection  with  the  normal  school  for  the  education  of  colored 
teachers)  lead  you  to  the  examination  generally  of  the  condition  of  the  black 
people  of  the  State  ? 

"  Answer.  Certainly ;  I  am  interested,  and  constantly  inquiring  and  convers 
ing  with  the  colored  people  ;  and  I  may  say  that  I  organized,  on  going  there,  a 
land  and  building  association,  for  the  colored  people,  which  brought  me  into 
intimate  contact  with  them.  I  am  the  treasurer  of  it.  The  object  is  to  secure 
to  them  homesteads. 

"  Question.  Has  the  question  of  the  treatment  of  the  colored  race  and  the  out 
rages  of  the  Ku-Klux  assumed  in  any  form  a  political  aspect  in  that  State  ? 

"  Answer.  I  have  stated  that  numbers  of  the  Union  League  assumed  the  badge 
of  the  Ku-Klux,  and  whipped  colored  people  — their  own  race  ;  so  that  I  do  not 
believe,  from  the  information  I  have  received,  the  organization  (Ku-Klux)  has 
any  political  character  whatever." 

Dr.  Smith's  testimony  is  fully  confirmed  by  that  of  Daniel  R.  Goodloe,  which 
will  be  found  in  the  same  document,  pp.  224-236.  Mr.  Goodloe  is  well  known 
at  the  North  by  his  long  connection  (as  a  contributor  and  assistant  editor,  from 
1847  to  1860)  with  the  National  Era,  the  Washington  organ  of  the  Abolitionists. 
He  was  one  of  the  corresponding  committee  of  the  Republican  Association  of 
Washington  City,  to  whom  Mr.  Frank  P.  Blair,  in  1855,  addressed  his  declara- 
19 


2$2  HISTORY    OF    THE 

was  no  law  that  intervened,  in  any  case,  for  the  protection  of  the 
slaves.  Under  Adrian  they  were  withdrawn,  from  the  domestic  tri 
bunal  and  transferred  to  the  tribunal  of  the  magistrates.1  Now,  a 
great  number  of  facts  testify  that,  during  this  long  period  of  their 
history,  while  they  remained  subject  to  the  discretion  of  their  mas 
ters,  the  latter  were  often  ungrateful,  harsh,  and  even  odiously  bar- 
barous.  We  do  not  wish  to  speak  in  detail  of  the  mutilations,  to 
which  they  subjected  some  of  their  slaves,  to  fit  them  for  the  pur 
poses  of  the  gynaeceum,  or  preserve  their  freshness  of  color,  and 
firmness  of  voice  for  the  theatre.  Generally,  the  slaves,  who  were 
subjected  to  this  kind  of  mutilation,  became  of  great  value,  and 
were  the  best  treated ;  although  Appian  says  that,  for  this,  they  had 
a  mortal  hatred  of  their  masters.2  But  what  irritated,  exasperated, 
and  sometimes,  with  good  reason,  provoked  the  slaves  to  rebellion, 
was  the  excessive  and  useless  bad  treatment,  which  they  suffered 

tion  of  adhesion  to  the  Republican  party,  in  which  he  denounced  the  Democratic 
party  as  a  "  combination"  to  extend  slavery  from  ocean  to  ocean.  Being  asked 
as  to  the  state  of  things  existing  in  North  Carolina,  affecting  the  security  of  per 
son  and  property,  Mr.  Goodloe  answered : 

"  In  that  portion  of  the  State,  of  which  I  can  speak  from  personal  knowledge, 
it  is  as  good  as  it  is  anywhere  in  the  world ;  there  is  no  more  steady-going  and 
quiet  people  that  I  know  of  anywhere  in  the  world.  There  is  just  as  much  secu 
rity  for  life  there  as  there  is  in  Massachusetts ;  more  than  there  has  been  in  this 
city  about  election  times,  to  my  certain  knowledge.  ...  I  have  never  been  afraid 
to  go  anywhere  in  North  Carolina ;  while  I  was  marshal,  I  went  all  over  the 
State,  without  any  other  weapon  than  a  pocket-knife."  .  .  . 

"  I  have  heard  it  stated  from  authorized  sources,  and  it  has  been  sworn  to,  that 
there  has  been  no  instance  of  violent  resistance  to  civil  process." 

See  also  pages  232  and  233,  where  Mr.  Goodloe  proves  that  the  State  of  North 
Carolina  has  been  brought  to  the  brink  of  hopeless  insolvency  by  Governor  Hoi- 
den  and  "  a  set  of  swindlers,  native  and  foreign,  who  ought  to  be  in  the  peniten 
tiary  for  the  balance  of  their  natural  lives;  "  and  that  they  had  fraudulently  squan 
dered  and  dishonestly  spent  the  State  revenues  and  credit,  until  "  State  insolvency 
was  looked  upon  as  an  already  accomplished  fact." 

1  Ulpian,  in  the  eighth  book  of  his  treatise  De  officio  proconsuh's,  under  the  title 
"  De  Donnnorum  Savitia"  cites  the  rescript  of  Antoninus  the  Pious,  which  com 
mences  thus :    "  Dominorum  quidem  potestatem  in   servos  suos    inlibitam  esse 
oportet,  nee  cuiquam  hominum  jus  suum  detrahi."   (Mosayc.  et  Romanar.,  leg. 
collat.,  tit.  iii.)     Pithou  also  mentions  the  law  of  Adrian,  as  given  by  Spartian, 
in  his  notes,  thus:  "  Spartianus  in  ejus  vita  (Hadriani)  servos,  inquit,  a  dominis 
occidi  vetuit,  eosque  jussit  damnari  per  judices,  si  digni  essent." 

2  Appian.  de  bell,  civil.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xcviii. 


WORKING    AND     BURGHER     CLASSES.  283 

from  avaricious,  capricious,  and^ferocious  masters.  When  old  age, 
or  disease,  began  to  make  them  useless,  there  were  masters,  who  for 
got  the  former  services  of  these  poor  helpless  slaves,  and  let  them 
die  of  hunger  and  misery.  This  is  what  made  Plutarch  so  indig 
nant,  and  made  him  say  that  his  ox  and  his  slave  merited  the  same 
kind  treatment.  Sometimes,  though  rarely,  masters  treated  their 
slaves  with  horrible  ferocity.  We  know  the  history  of  that  Vedius 
Pollion,  of  whom  Seneca  speaks,  who  fed  the  fishes  in  his  ponds 
with  the  flesh  of  his  slaves.1 

The  third  cause  of  slave  discontent  and  revolt  was  the  inexe- 
cution  of  the  regulations  concerning  them.  Although  the  interven 
tion  of  the  magistrate  in  the  relations  of  master  and  slaves  was  not 
complete  until  the  time  of  Adrian,  there  were,  nevertheless,  even 
under  the  republic,  general  regulations  as  to  slaves  —  some  estab 
lished  by  custom,  others  decreed  J?y  the  senate.  Diodorus  testifies, 
in  the  most  positive  manner,  that  the  revolt,  of  which  the  shepherd 
Athenion  was  the  chief,  broke  out  on  account  of  the  impossibility 
of  a  faithful  execution  by  the  praetor  of  Sicily  of  the  established 
regulations  as  to  slaves.2  Plutarch  clearly  shows  that  the  revolt  of 
Spartacus  had  no  other  cause. 

The  three  revolts,  which  were  truly  serious  and  terrible,  broke 
out  very  nearly  in  the  last  sixty  years  of  the  republic.  The  two 
first  took  place  in  Sicily,  the  last  at  the  gates  of  Rome.  Etinus,  the 
Syrian,  and  Athenion  were  the  leaders  of  the  former,  Spartacus  of 
the  latter. 

Eunus  the  Syrian,  as  his  name  indicates,  was  a  slave  originally 
from  Syria.  Generally,  the  slaves  brought  from  that  country  were 
active,  elegant,  and  industrious,  and  were  employed  in  the  houses 
of  the  great  in  the  service  of  the  table,  which  was  the  most  difficult 
and  nice.  Syria  also  furnished  excellent  mimics,  dancers,  and  ma 
gicians.  Eunus  presented  himself  at  the  prisons,  where  the  slaves 
worked  in  chains,  as  a  prophet,  who  was  in  communication  with 
the  gods.  He  called,  to  witness  the  sanctity  of  his  mission,  the 
tower-crowned  headdress  of  the  Syrian  Venus ;  and  concealing  in 
his  mouth  a  nutshell  filled  with  lighted  sulphur,  he  threw  out,  with 
his  words  of  ecstasy,  light  flames,  which  astonished  his  hearers.3 

1  Seneca,  de  clement.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  xcviii. 
2Diod.  Sicul.,  fragm.,  lib.  xxxiv.  2. 
3Flor.  Hist.,  lib.  hi.,  cap   xix. 


284  HISTORY     OF     THE 

This  prodigy  immediately  drew  to  him  two  thousand  partisans. 
These  broke  the  doors  of  the  prisons,  and  "Eunus  soon  counted  an 
army  of  more  than  sixty  thousand  men.1  The  war  was  fierce  and 
long.  The  slaves  took  the  camps  of  four  praetors.  At  last  they 
shut  themselves  up  in  the  city  of  Enna,  there  defended  them 
selves  with  courage,  and  nearly  all  died  of  famine,  pestilence, 
and  the  sword.2 

Sicily  had  scarcely  recovered  from  this  frightful  shock,  which 
deprived  her  of  more  than  sixty  thousand  workmen,  when  the 
second  revolt  broke  out.  It  was  caused,  as  we  have  said,  by  the 
inexecution  of  the  regulations.  A  slave  shepherd,  originally  from 
Cilicia,  and  named  Athenion,  assassinated  his  master,  roused  the 
slaves  to  revolt,  and  in  a  short  time  gathered  together  an  army  as 
numerous  as  that  of  Eunus  the  Syrian.3  Athenion  also  stormed  two 
praetorian  camps;  but  his  slaves,  like  those  of  Eunus,  perished  by 
famine.4 

A  very  characteristic  trait,  common  to  Eunus  and  Athenion,  was, 
that  in  revolting,  neither  had  any  idea  of  abolishing  slavery  or  of 
establishing  equality.  Scarce  had  they  drawn  armies  around  them, 
before  they  hastened  to  forget  that  they  had  had  the  chain  around 
their  necks,  and  to  enjoy  with  delight  the  prerogatives  of  lordship. 
First,  as  may  easily  be  believed,  castles,  villages,  and  cities  were 
pillaged.5  Then  the  two  chiefs,  with  puerile  delight,  decked  them 
selves  out  with  the  insignia  of  royalty.  Athenion,  the  shepherd, 
especially  always  appeared  clothed  in  a  rich  robe  of  purple,  with  a 
cane  of  silver  in  his  hand,  and  a  diadem  on  his  brow.6  ^ 

The  revolt  of  Spartacus  was  still  more  terrible,  and  Florus  speaks 
of  it  with  dolorous  humility.  For,  this  time,  it  was  not  a  mere 
revolt  of  slaves.  It  was  a  revolt  of  gladiators.7 

One  Lentulus  Batiatus,  of  Capua,  was  by  profession  a  raiser  of 
slaves,  whom  he  trained  to  fencing  and  made  gladiators.8  He  had 
nearly  a  hundred  pairs  of  them,  whom  he  kept  confined,  and  des 
tined  to  fight  each  other  to  the  death,  although  they  had  committed 
no  offence.  These  slaves,  nearly  all  Gauls,  Germans,  or  Francs, 
resolved  to  escape  and  flee.  They  elected  three  leaders,  Spartacus, 
Crixus,  and  (Enomaus.9  Their  project  having  been  discovered,  only 

i  Flor.  Hist.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xix.  »  Ibid.  3  Ibid.  *  Ibid. 

5  Ibid.  «Ibid.  1 1bid.  8  Plutarch,  M .  Crassus,  cap.  viii. 

9  Ann.  Flor.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xx.  \  I.      The  writers  differ  greatly  as  to  the  number 

-t 

'  *JU(JUL..-U 

I          .  I    M 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  285 

half  of  them  succeeded  in  getting  out,  armed  with  knives,  cleavers, 
and  spits,  which  they  took  from  the  kitchens.1  Scarce  out  of 
Capua,  they  met  some  carts  belonging  to  their  masters,  carrying  to 
the  neighboring  cities  arms  destined  for  a  combat  of  gladiators, 
which  they  seized.  Some  troops  of  the  garrison  of  Capua,  having 
been  sent  to  bring  them  back,  were  beaten  and  disarmed,  and  the 
fugitives  profited  by  this  victory  to  lay  aside  their  gladiatorial 
weapons,  which  they  considered  as  infamous,  and  take  those  of  Ro 
man  soldiers,  which  were  the  arms  of  free  men.2  Thus,  neither  the 
gladiators  of  Capua  nor  the  slaves  of  Sicily  had  any  idea,  in  revolt 
ing,  of  proclaiming  the  equality  of  men.  Both  were  ashamed  of 
the  condition,  from  which  they  were  trying  to  escape,  instead  of 
boasting  of  it  like  i\\Q  Jacques  of  the  middle  ages,  or  the  Gueux  of 
the  Netherlands. 

Plutarch,  Florus,  and  Appian  relate  in  detail  the  war  of  the 
gladiators.  It  lasted  three  years.  From  the  first,  Spartacus  was 
recognized  as  the  principal  chief,3  and  for  him  it  was  a  succession 
of  victories.  He  successively  defeated  five  praetorian  or  consular 
armies.  At  last  the  senate  charged  Crassus  with  the  conduct  of  the 
war,  and  recalled,  to  aid  him,  Lucullus  from  Thrace,  and  Pompey 
from  Spain.  At  one  time  it  was  thought  that  Spartacus  was  about 
to  march  against  Rome,*  and  the  terrified  republic  recalled  the  time 
of  Hannibal. 

Spartacus,  who  was  a  man  with  a  heart  above  his  condition,  had 
but  one  idea.  He  wished  to  cross  the  Alps,  reach  Gaul,  and,  once 
there,  let  every  man  take  the  road  to  his  own  country.5  The 
strategy  of  the  consuls  and  the  mutiny  of  his  companions  prevented 
the  realization  of  his  project.  He  therefore  turned  about  for  three 
years  in  Lower  Italy,  like  a  red  deer  in  a  cage,  passing  and  repassing 
the  Apennines,  trying  to  reach  Sicily,  and  even  throwing  two  thou 
sand  men  to  aid  some  pirates,  who  deceived  him ; 6  then  burning 

of  gladiators,  who  accompanied  Spartacus.  Florus  is  the  one  who  puts  it  at  the 
lowest  figure.  We  have  taken  a  mean  number.  See  Cicero  ad  Attic.,  vi.  2  ; 
Epit,  lib.  xlv. ;  Vellei.  Paterc.,  lib.  ii.  30,  6 ;  Eutrop.  vi.  2 ;  Oros.,  v.  25  ;  Frontin. 
I,  5,  21,  Ixxiv.  Pacatus  (Paneg.,  Theod.,  cap.  xxiii.)  says  that  he  had  a  battal 
ion,  agmen. 

1  Plutarch,  M.  Crassus,  cap.  viii.  2  Ibid.,  cap.  ix. 

3  Ibid.,  cap.  viii.  —  Appian.  de  bell,  civ.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  cxvii. 

4  Appian.  de  bell,  civ.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  cxvii. 

6  Plutarch,  M.  Crassus,  cap.  ix.  6  Ibid.,  cap.  x. 


286  HISTORY   OF    THE 

and  pillaging  the  country,  emptying  the  wine-cellars  of  the  friends 
of  Epicurus,  to  the  great  disgust  of  the  gourmands,1  and  sacking 
Nola,  Nuceria,  Thurium,  and  Metapontus.2 

At  last  two  of  his  lieutenants,  Caius  Cannicius  and  Castus,  weak 
ened  his  army,  by  separating  from  him.3  In  his  last  battle,  as 
they  brought  to  him  his  horse  caparisoned,  he  killed  him  with 
a  blow  of  his  sword,  and  chose  to  fight  on  foot.4  He  fought 
with  the  skill  of  a  gladiator  and  the  courage  of  a  hero.  Wounded 
in  the  thigh  in  searching  for  Crassus,  he  fell,  and  received  so  many 
sword-cuts  before  dying  that  his  body  could  not  be  recognized.5 
He  had  with  him  his  wife,  the  daughter  of  a  Thracian  herds 
man,  somewhat  versed  in  magic,  who  had  loved  him  "in  the 
bush,"  and  who,  having  one  day  found  him  asleep  with  a  snake 
coiled  around  his  face,  predicted  that  he  would  become  a  terrible 
and  fortunate  king.6  Florus  thus  sums  up  his  history.  He  was,  he 
says,  first  a  Thracian  hireling,  then  a  soldier,  then  a  deserter,  then 
a  brigand,  then  a  gladiator.7  This  war  ended,  there  remained, 
of  all  the  companions  of  Spartacus,  six  thousand  prisoners.  Six 
thousand  crosses  were  erected  on  the  two  sides  of  the  road  leading 
from  Capua  to  Rome,  and  there  they  were  all  crucified  on  the  same 
day.8  \ 

The  characteristic  of  all  these  revolts,  however  well  they  may 
have  appeared  to  be  put  down,  was  always,  as  may  easily  be 
believed,  to  leave  a  great  residuum  of  bandits  and  robbers,  who 
established  themselves  near  the  Roman  highways,  and  from  the 
thickly  wooded  swamps  or  mountain  gorges  rushed  out  to  carry 
off  sheep  and  cattle,  or  put  travellers  to  ransom.  The  disorders  of 
the  civil  war,  which  preceded  or  followed  the  death  of  Caesar,  had 
produced  such  numbers  of  them,  that  Augustus  was  obliged  to  dis 
tribute  troops  through  all  Italy,  to  prevent  their  taking  the  field 
with  armed  bands,  and  carrying  off  slaves  and  free  persons.9  Under 
Tiberius,  brigandage  had  grown  so  bold,  that  this  emperor  aug- 

1  Et  cadum  Marsi  memorem  duelli 
Spartacum  si  qua  potuit  vagantem 

Fallere  testa.  (Hor.  Carm.,  lib.  iii.,  od.  xiv.) 

2Flor.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xx.  3  Plutarch,  M.  Crassus,  cap.  xi. 

*  Ibid.,  cap.  xi.  5  Appian.  de  bell,  civ.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  cxx. 

6  Plutarch,  M.  Crassus,  cap.  viii.  7  Florus,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xx. 

8  Appian.  de  bell,  civ.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  cxx. 

9  Sueton.  Tranquil.,  cap.  xxxii. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  28/ 

mented  the  troops  (corps  de  garde}  and  detailed  the  praetorian 
cohorts  to  guard  the  city.1 

It  should  be  understood  that  the  system  of  the  ancient  was  dif 
ferent  from  that  of  modern  robbers.  The  ancient  robbers  hardly 
ever  killed.  They  ransomed,  and  when  the  person  captured  had 
not  the  money,  they  sold  him,  as  a  slave,  which  was  another  mode 
of  ransom.  These  robbers  even  acted  on  certain  rules,  on  which 
one  could  depend.  If  taken  by  them,  the  prisoner  had  only  to 
send  to  a  relative  or  friend,  and  he  was  conducted  immediately 
to  the  place  designated  and  set  at  liberty,  if  the  relative  or  friend 
acted  with  caution.  Appian  mentions  Decimus  Brutus,  who  killed 
Caesar,  and  who  was  taken  in  Gaul,  as  he  fled  after  the  death  of  the 
dictator,  and  carried,  at  his  request,  to  the  Gallic  lord,  on  whose 
territory  he  had  been  captured.2 

Sometimes  these  brigands  formed  small  armies,  which  they  placed 
in  the  service  of  a  general.  During  the  wars  of  Fabius  Maximus 
^Emilianus  in  Portugal,  there  were  two  companies  of  briga.nds,  of 
ten  thousand  men,  who  gave  much  trouble  to  the  Roman  army.3 
The  same  thing  has  occurred  often  in  modern  history.  During  the 
wars  which  followed  the  death  of  Charles  VI.,  in  1418,  "there 
reigned  (says  Monstrelet)  on  the  marches  of  Poutoise,  Isle- Adam, 
and  Gisors,  a  brigand  chief,  named  Tabary."  *  This  Tabary,  who 
was  small  and  lame,  but  brave,  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Burgun- 
dians,  which  did  not  prevent  his  cutting  the  throats  of  the  Duke  of 
Bedford's  English.  He  had  the  honor  of  being  killed  in  1420,  in 
an  assault,  at  the  head  of  his  band,  and  in  company  with  the  Mare- 
chal  Villiers  de  1' Isle- Adam,  Antoine  de  Cro'i,  Robert  de  Saveuse, 
the  Seigneur  de  Noyelle  et  de  Lyonnel  de  Bournonville,  on  the 
fortress  of  Toussy,  in  Auxerrois,  defended  by  the  Seigneur  de  la 
Tremoille.5 

We  should  add  a  few  words  relative  to  a  specialty  included  in 
the  general  profession  of  robbers  —  that  of  a  corsair.  We  have 
already  said  that,  among  the  most  ancient  peoples  on  the  coast  of 
the  Mediterranean  Sea,  the  profession  of  a  corsair  was  not  dishon- 

1  Sueton.  Tranquil.,  Tiber.,  cap.  xxvii. 

2  Appian.  de  bell,  civ.,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xcviii. 

3  Appian.  de  bell.  Hispan.,  cap.  Ixviii. 
4Chroniq.  d'Enguer.  de  Monstrelet,  liv.  i.,  cap.  ccii. 

5  Chroniq.  d'Enguer.  de  Monstrelet,  liv.  i.,  cap.  ccxxxiii. 


288  HISTORY    OF    THE 

orable.1  It  was  then  followed  by  free  men.  In  the  Odyssey,  the 
heroes,  in  a  very  amicable 2  spirit,  ask  this  question  : '"  My  lord,  are 
you  a  pirate  ?"  Within  a  few  centuries,  fugitive  slaves  also  took 
to  piracy.  Plato  assures  us  that,  in  his  time,  all  the  pirates,  who 
infested  the  coasts  of  Italy,  were  previously  slaves.8  What  is  worthy 
of  notice  is  that,  as  soon  as  these  fugitive  slaves  came  together  at 
any  one  point — took  possession  of  some  strong  castle,  and  founded 
some  durable  establishment  —  they  hastened  to  establish  slavery 
among  them.  When  Pompey  had  delivered  the  Roman  republic 
from  the  crowd  of  pirates,  whom  Mithridates  had  let  loose  on  the 
Mediterranean;  when  he  had  taken  from  them  378  ships,  and  killed 
10,000  men,  he  opened  the  120  cities,  or  castles,  which  they  had 
seized,*  and  found  there  all  that  constituted  a  complete  state  at  that 
epoch  :  captives  in  chains,  who  waited  to  be  ransomed,  arsenals 
full  of  timbers,  iron,  sails,  hemp,  and  a  great  multitude  of  slaves, 
who  worked  in  the  prisons.5 

The  most  illustrious  pirate,  whom  antiquity  has  produced,  was 
Agathocles,  tyrant  of  Sicily,  who  succeeded  to  all  the  splendor  of 
the  elder  Dionysius.  Son  of  a  poor  potter,  he  passed  his  infancy 
in  houses  of  ill-fame.6  Grown  to  manhood,  he  became  a  pirate, 
and  began  his  career  by  robbing  his  own  fellow-citizens.7  Exiled 
twice  from  Syracuse,  he  took  refuge  with  the  Murgantines,  who 
elected  him  their  general.  Syracuse,  which  had  banished  him  as 
a  robber,  recalled  him  as  a  general ;  and  then  commenced  those 
brilliant  wars  against  Carthage,  which  made  him  the  most  powerful 
monarch  that  Sicily  ever  had.8 

JThucyd.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  v.  —  Polyb.  Hist.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  viii. 

2  Odys.,  lib.  iii.,  v.  71-73.  3  Plato  de  legibus,  lib.  vi. 

4  Appian.  de  bell.  Mithridat.,  cap.  xcvi.          5Ibid. 

6  Ibid.  7  Justin.,  lib.  xxii.,  cap.  i.  8  Ibid. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  289 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

MODERN  TRADES'  UNIONS/ 

WE  have  reached  a  point  where  those  who  have  followed,  step 
by  step,  the  development  of  this  book,  will  raise  a  grave 
objection  to  the  historic  theory,  which  it  proposes.  If  it  be  true,  as 
this  book  teaches,  that  the  commune  and  the  trades'  union  are,  one 
the  administrative,  and  the  other  the  industrial  association,  which 
slaves  form  on  attaining  liberty,  so  that  these  two  species  of  asso 
ciations  are  reproduced  simultaneously  and  necessarily  in  all  slave 
countries,  how  does  it  happen  that,  after  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Em 
pire,  the  trades'  unions  and  the  communes  disappeared,  although 
there  were  slaves  still  in  Europe  ?  and  that  we  had  in  France  to  wait 
until  the  reign  of  Philip  Augustus  to  again  find  burghers  and  trades' 
unions  ?  Does  it  not  seem,  if  the  theory  of  this  book  is  correct, 
that  with  the  general  tendency  to  emancipation,  which  Christianity 
introduced  in  the  Old  World :  with  the  trouble  and  tumult  caused  by 
the  invasion  of  the  barbarians  in  the  West :  the  multitude  of  freed- 
men  ought  to  have  been  greater  and  greater,  and  that  there  ought 
to  have  been,  on  the  contrary,  more  communes  and  more  trades' 
unions  than  ever? 

The  objection  is  real  and  serious.  It  requires  us  to  present  a  phase 
of  the  invasion  of  the  peoples  of  the  North,  which  no  historian  that 
we  know  of  has  as  yet  explained  and  pointed  out. 

There  is  in  history  a  custom,  to  call  the  peoples  of  the  North,  who 
invaded  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  fifth  century,  barbarians ;  but  no 
one  has  given  us  a  clear  idea  of  what  constituted  their  barbarism. 
We  will  endeavor  to  settle  this  question,  which,  we  hope,  will  illu 
minate  and  fix  some  points  heretofore  undecided  and  obscure. 

As  we  have  already  said,  if  we  consider  the  family  in  the  primi- 

1  We  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  support  the  ideas  contained  in  this  chapter 
by  justificative  notes.  For  us,  learning  is  not  a  luxury,  but  a  necessity.  Now, 
this  chapter  being  based  entirely  on  the  testimony  of  well-known  books,  such  as 
the  History  of  Paris  by  Felibien,  the  Treatise  on  Police,  and  the  Register  of 
Trades,  we  have  not  thought  necessary  to  enlarge  this  book  by  superabundant 
citations. 


2QO  HISTORY    OF    THE 

tive  times  of  history,  we  find  it  entirely  constituted  in  the  father  and 
absorbed  by  him.  The  wife  was  bought,  ajid  consequently  a  slave; 
the  son  could  be  sold,  and  was  therefore  a  slave  ;  the  servant  was 
completely  a  slave.  At  this  epoch  of  the  family,  the  wife,  the  son, 
and  the  servant  were  owned;  they  owned  nothing  —  neither  name, 
nor  personality,  nor  property.  They  existed  only  by  the  father  and 
in  the  father.  Such,  we  have  shown,  was  the  primitive  state  of  the 
family. 

As  ages  rolled  by,  the  constitution  of  the  family  was  modified. 
The  authority  of  the  father  diminished,  and  the  personality  of  the 
wife,  the  son,  and  the  servant  was  disengaged.  Things  finally 
reached  the  point  where  the  wife  had  her  portion  in  the  joint  pro 
perty,  and  could  demand  a  divorce ;  when  the  son,  at  twenty-one 
years  of  age,  was  independent  of  the  father,  and  had  his  legal  part 
in  the  succession  ;  when  the  servant  ceased  to  be  a  slave  to  become 
a  hireling,  and  thenceforth  discuss  the  conditions  of  his  labor. 

This  revolution  in  the  family  is  a  human  fact :  that  is  to  say,  a 
fact  produced  in  the  Jewish  family,  in  the  Greek,  the  Roman,  and 
the  German ;  in  the  East  and  in  the  West ;  in  humanity. 

Well !  Barbarous  peoples  are  those  who,  as  compared  with  others, 
have  not  passed  through  so  many  phases  of  the  history  of  the  family. 
As  facts  invincibly  establish  that  the  family  does  not  remain  sta 
tionary  between  the  two  extreme  points  of  its  constitution,  which  we 
have  indicated,  it  necessarily  follows  that  every  people  (who  are  but 
an  aggregation  of  families)  must  pass  through  all  the  degrees  suc 
cessively.  Hence,  the  most  barbarous  people  are  those,  who  have 
made  the  least  of  this  inevitable  journey;  the  most  civilized  are 
those,  who  have  made  the  most. 

The  nations  of  the  North,  who  invaded  the  Roman  Empire  in  the 
fifth  century,  were,  in  fact,  barbarians,  as  compared  with  the  nations 
invaded — that  is  to  say,  the  Goths,  the  Franks,  the  Burgundians, 
the  Saxons,  the  Vandals,  the  Quadi,  the  Heruli  had  not  reached  the 
point  in  the  history  of  the  family,  to  which  the  peoples  of  Gaul, 
Spain,  Italy,  and  Greece  had  arrived.  With  them,  the  authority 
of  the  father  was  more  entire  and  more  absolute.  For  example,  the 
servant,  who  in  the  Roman  Empire  had  almost  generally  reached 
the  condition  of  a  hireling,  was,  among  them,  still  in  the  condition 
of  slavery,  and  consequently  they  knew  nothing  of  communes,  or 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  2QI 

trades'  unions,  or  of  any  of  the  associations,  to  which  freedmen  give 
birth. 

Thus,  the  peoples  of  the  North,  who  inundated  the  empire  in  the 
fifth  century,  were,  properly  speaking,  more  primitive  than  the  van 
quished.  To  find  in  the  history  of  Italy  an  epoch  when  its  institu 
tions  were  analogous  to  those  of  the  Goths  or  the  Franks,  we  must 
go  back  at  least  to  the  time  of  Tarquin  the  Proud.  Already,  from 
the  time  of  Marius,  the  feudal  relations  of  the  great  families  of 
Rome  were  weakened.  We  have  seen  that  a  judicial  decision  was 
necessary  to  force  Marius  to  recognize  the  suzerainty  of  the  house 
of  Herennius.  Among  the  Goths,  the  Saxons,  and  the  Franks,  on 
the  contrary,  the  feudal  hierarchy  was  still,  in  the  fifth  century,  pre 
dominant. 

When,  after  the  invasion,  the  barbarian  society  of  the  North  was 
infused  in  exaggerated  proportions  into  the  civilized  society  of  the 
South,  there  resulted  from  the  mixture  a  third  society,  much  less 
advanced  than  that,  which  for  some  years  previous  covered  the  face 
of  the  Roman  world.  Greece,  Italy,  Spain,  Gaul  were  obliged  to 
recommence  —  recommence  is  the  term  rigorously  correct — many 
successive  steps  of  progress,  which  those  countries  had  already  passed 
through.  For  example,  they  recommenced  the  emancipation  of 
slaves,  to  arrive,  in  the  twelfth  century,  at  the  communes  and  the 
trades'  unions,  two  things,  which  they  already  had  long  before  the 
invasion  of  the  barbarians. 

This  sudden  and  immense  backset,  impressed  on  the  Roman  world 
by  the  invasion,  is  a  phenomenon  so  clear  and  striking  that  the 
greatest  annalist  history  ever  had,  Vico,  has  based  upon  it  his  cele 
brated  theory  of  the  Recorsi — that  is  to  say,  of  the  returns  of 
humanity  upon  itself  at  given  periods  of  the  life  of  peoples.  Vico 
shows  with  admirable  art  how  all  the  West  recommenced,  as  we 
have  said,  in  the  fifth  century,  what  it  had  already  done  and  per 
fected  seven  or  eight  centuries  before.  This  idea  of  Vico  is  mathe 
matically  true.  But  if  Vico  was  right  in  affirming  that  the  West 
repassed,  under  the  peoples  of  the  conquest,  through  the  same  laws, 
the  same  institutions,  the  same  progress,  which  the  Roman  people 
had  already  given  to  it,  he  is  wrong  in  concluding  that  this  consti 
tutes  a  circular  revolution  of  humanity  upon  itself.  For  the  Franks 
recommenced  the  Romans,  it  is  true ;  but  having  recommenced,  they 


HISTORY    OF    THE 

continued  them.     This  is  what  Vico  did  not  observe,  and  what  ruins 
his  theory,  (a*)  + 

(a)  This  theory  of  Vico  has  been  very  generally  adopted,  and,  in  another  form, 
is  expressed  by  the  adage,  "  History  repeats  itself."  Doubtless  it  is  on  this  theory 
that  Generals  Grant,  Sherman,  and  even  Logan,  rest  their  hopes  of  wearing  some 
day  the  imperial  purple  —  when,  by  the  misrule  of  carpetbag-negro-scalawag  bar 
barism,  Radical  policy  shall  have  accomplished  its  object  of  disgusting  the  peo 
ple  with  republicanism,  and  shall  have  prepared  them  for  a  transition  to  a  mon 
archical  or  imperial  form  of  government,  as  John  Adams,  a  great  man  and  a 
patriot,  though  a  monarchist,  anticipated  and  foretold.  (See  Translator's  Preface, 
fol.  xvi.) 

General  Logan  bases  his  hopes  on  the  Grand-Commandership  of  the  Grand 
Army  of  the  Republic,  and  on  his  great  projet  of  removing  the  seat  of  govern 
ment  from  Washington  to  a  new  metropolis,  Logansport.  But  his  aspirations  are 
simply  ridiculous ;  as  bogus  as  the  paste  diamonds,  with  which,  after  having  first 
tendered  his  services  to  the  rebel  States,  he  is  said  to  have  bought  his  major- 
general's  commission,  valuing  them  at  $1,500,  when  they  were  not  worth  1,500 
cents. 

The  simple  fact  that  his  Grand-Commandership  should  cause  a  man  of  General 
Logan's  mediocre  mental  calibre  to  "dream  dreams"  of  becoming  the  EMPEROR 
CONSTANTINE  of  the  New  World,  through  the  influence  and  by  the  instrument 
ality  of  the  G.  A.  R.,  proves  two  other  facts,  viz.  : 

1.  The  general  acceptation  of  the  idea  that  in  the  circular  revolution  of  hu 
manity  upon  itself,  the  republican  —  that  is  to  say,  the  municipal  and  State  —  rights 
of  the  working   and  burgher    classes  will  inevitably  be  swallowed  up  by  the 
unification  and  centralization  of  all  political  power,  in  America  as  in  Europe,  in 
the  hands  of  an  emperor  or  a  king,  and  of  the  nobility,  which  that  emperor  or 
king  may  create. 

2.  The  anti- republican,  imperialistic  tendencies  of  such  an  organization  as  the 
G.  A.  R.,  which  is  not  a  trades'  union,  nor  a  labor  union,  but  is  Apolitical,  office- 
seeking  union  of  men,  who  have  no  sympathy,  nor  any  point  of  contact  with  the 
working  and  burgher  classes,  except  a  desire  to  put  into  their  own  pockets  the  taxes, 
which  the  working  and  burgher  classes  pay  for  the  support  of  the  government. 

Genera]  Grant  bases  his  aspirations  on  his  brilliant  military  services.  But  their 
lustre  is  now  obscured  behind  a  big  black  cloud  —  auri  sacra  fames  —  the  "  ac 
cursed  greed  for  gold,"  which  cannot  say  "  no  "  to  any  who  come  "  dona  ferentes" 
(bringing  gifts,)  but  clutches  with  miser's  grasp  at  houses  and  lands,  U.  S.  bonds 
and  Sto.  Domingo  shares,  railroad  land-grants  and  stocks,  fast  horses  and  fat 
cattle  —  anything  and  everything,  on  which  there  are  no  express  charges  to  be 
paid.  The  aspirant  for  an  imperial  throne  and  sceptre  must  be  more  noted  for 
giving  than  accepting. 

The  most  dangerous  man  to  republican  liberty  in  this  country  is  General  W. 
Tecumseh  Sherman.  He  has  all  the  requisite  qualifications  of  a  successful  mili- 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  293 

Now,  if  we  apply  this  idea  to  the  history  of  the  slave  races  of  the 
middle  ages,  we  account  with  precision,  and  clearly,  for  the  kind  of 

tary  usurper.  He  has  the  military  genius ;  the  ruthlessness  of  his  savage  name 
sake,  Tecumseh;  an  unscrupulous  disregard  of  all  the  obligations  of  honor, 
clemency,  good  faith,  truth;  the  prestige  of  giving  to  his  followers  "all  that  his 
quartermasters  couldn't  take  possession  of,  or  didn't  want." 

He  accepted  the  surrender  of  Columbia,  S.  C,  having  pledged  his  military 
honor  for  the  protection  of  noncombatants  and  private  property.  He  then  applied 
the  torch  and  burned  Columbia  to  the  ground,  reckless  alike  of  feeble  woman 
hood  and  innocent  childhood. 

He  is  the  very  man  to  sweep  remorselessly  over  all  obstacles  that  might  stand 
in  his  way  to  imperial  and  absolute  power. 

He  afterward  charged  the  "enormous  crime"  of  the  destruction  of  Columbia 
on  General  Wade  Hampton.  General  Hampton  replied  by  the  following  letter, 
which  the  Radical  Senate  refused  to  receive  or  act  on,  because  they  knew  that  an 
investigation  would  acquit  General  Hampton  and  convict  General  Sherman,  both 
of  the  burning  and  the  slander. 

WILD  WOODS,  Miss.,  April  21,  1866. 
To  the  Hon.  REVERDY  JOHNSON,  U.  S.  Senate : 

Sir —  A  few  days  ago  I  saw  in  the  published  proceedings  of  Congress  that  a 
petition  of  Benjamin  Rawles,  of  Columbia,  S.  C.,  asking  compensation  for  the 
destruction  of  his  house  by  the  Federal  army,  in  February,  1865,  had  been  pre 
sented  to  the  Senate,  accompanied  by  a  letter  from  Major-General  Sherman. 

In  this  letter  General  Sherman  uses  the  following  language :  "  The  citizens  of 
Columbia  set  fire  to  thousands  of  bales  of  cotton  rolled  out  into  the  streets,  and 
which  were  burning  before  we  entered  Columbia.  I  myself  was  in  the  city  as 
early  as  nine  o'clock,  and  I  saw  these  fires,  and  know  that  efforts  were  made  to 
extinguish  them ;  but  a  high  and  strong  wind  kept  them  alive. 

"  I  gave  no  orders  for  the  burning  of  your  city,  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  confla 
gration  resulted  from  the  great  imprudence  of  cutting  the  cotton  bales,  whereby 
the  contents  were  spread  to  the  wind,  so  that  it  became  an  impossibility  to  arrest 
the  fire. 

"  I  saw  in  your  Columbia  paper  the  printed  order  of  General  Wade  Hampton 
that,  on  the  approach  of  the  Yankee  army,  all  the  cotton  should  thus  be  burned ; 
and  from  what  I  saw  myself,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  he  was  the  cause 
of  the  destruction  of  your  city." 

This  same  charge,  made  against  me  by  General  Sherman,  having  been  brought 
before  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  I  am  naturally  most  solicitous  to  vindicate 
myself  before  the  same  tribunal.  But  my  State  has  no  representative  in  that  body. 
Those  who  should  be  her  constitutional  representatives  and  exponents  there  are 
debarred  the  right  of  entrance  into  those  halls.  There  are  none  who  have  the 
right  to  speak  for  the  South ;  none  to  participate  in  the  legislation  which  governs 
her ;  none  to  impose  the  taxes  she  is  called  upon  to  pay ;  and  none  to  vindicate 


2Q4  HISTORY    OF    THE 

interruption,  which  the  barbarians  brought  with  them  in  their  march 
toward  civil  life.  The  people  of  the  South  had  passed  through 

her  sons  from  misrepresentation,  injustice,  and  slander.  Under  these  circum 
stances,  I  appeal  to  you,  in  the  confident  hope  that  you  will  use  every  effort  to 
see  that  justice  is  done  in  this  matter. 

I  deny  emphatically  that  any  cotton  was  fired  in  Columbia  by  my  order. 

I  deny  that  the  citizens  "  set  fire  to  thousands  of  bales  rolled  out  into  the 
streets." 

I  deny  that  any  cotton  was  on  fire  when  the  Federal  troops  entered  the  city. 

I  most  respectfully  ask  of  Congress  to  appoint  a  committee  charged  with  the 
duty  of  ascertaining  and  reporting  all  the  facts  connected  with  the  destruction  of 
Columbia,  and  thus  fix  upon  the  proper  author  of  that  enormous  crime  the  infamy 
he  richly  deserves. 

I  am  willing  to  submit  the  case  to  any  honest  tribunal.  Before  any  such,  I 
pledge  myself  to  prove  that  I  gave  a  positive  order,  by  direction  of  General  Beau- 
regard,  that  no  cotton  should  be  fired ;  that  not  one  bale  was  on  fire  when  Gen 
eral  Sherman's  troops  took  possession  of  the  city ;  that  he  promised  protection  to 
the  city;  and  that,  in  spite  of  his  solemn  promise,  he  burned  the  city  to  the 
ground,  deliberately,  systematically,  and  atrociously. 

I  therefore  most  earnestly  request  that  Congress  may  take  prompt  and  efficient 
measures  to  investigate  this  matter  fully.  Not  only  is  this  due  to  themselves  and 
to  the  reputation  of  the  United  States  army,  but  also  to  justice  and  truth. 

Trusting  that  you  will  pardon  me  for  troubling  you,  I  am,  very  respectfully, 
your  ob't  serv't,  WADE  HAMPTON. 

Not  long  after  the  war,  yet  long  enough  for  the  passions  of  war  to  cool,  we 
read  and  were  shocked  at  a  report  of  a  speech  made  by  General  Sherman,  in 
defence  and  justification  of  the  outrages  committed  by  his  bummers  on  the  helpless 
women  and  children  of  Georgia  and  South  Carolina ;  the  substance  of  which  speech 
was  that,  because  of  the  great  crime  of  their  male  relatives,  i.  e.  rebellion,  these 
women  and  children  had  no  rights,  which  his  bummers  were  bound  to  respect. 
In  a  hasty  examination  of  the  files  of  the  Washington  Chronicle  for  that  speech, 
we  find  in  that  paper  of  the  3Oth  of  August,  1865,  the  following  extract  from  a 
speech  made  by  General  Sherman  at  a  soldiers'  picnic  at  Lancaster,  Ohio : 

"  When  the  rebels  ventured  their  all  in  their  efforts  to  destroy  our  Government, 
"  they  pledged  their  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their  sacred  honors  to  their  cause. 
"  The  Government  accepted  their  wager  of  battle.  Hence,  when  we  conquered, 
"  we  by  conquest  gained  all  they  had.  Their  property  became  ours  by  conquest. 
"  Thus  they  lost  their  slaves,  their  mules,  their  horses,  their  cotton,  their  all ;  and 
"  even  their  lives  and  personal  liberty,  thrown  by  them  into  the  issue,  "were  theirs 
"  only  by  our  forbearance  and  clemency. 

"By  this  right  of  conquest  we  own  this  ground  we  stand  on  to-day,  conquered 
"from  the  Indians  —  the  Shawnees,  I  believe. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  295 

nearly  all  the  successive  phases  of  the  family.     The  people  of  the 
North  had  passed  through  but  few.      The  Greeks,  Italians,  Span- 

"  The  State  of  Ohio  is  ours  by  conquest  from  the  French  and  English. 

"  So,  soldiers,  when  we  marched  through  and  conquered  the  country  of  the 
"  rebels,  we  became  owners  of  all  they  had ;  and  I  don't  want  you  TO  BE  TROU- 
"  BLED  IN  YOUR  CONSCIENCES/^  taking,  while  on  oiir  great  march,  the  property 
"  of  the  rebels.  They  forfeited  their  right  to  it,  and  I,  BEING  AGENT  FOR  THE 
"  GOVERNMENT  TO  WHICH  I  BELONGED,  GAVE  YOU  AUTHORITY  TO  KEEP  ALL  THE 

"  QUARTERMASTERS  COULDN'T  TAKE  POSSESSION  OF,  OR  DIDN'T  WANT." 

Now,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  General  Sherman,  with  all  the  advantages  of 
a  West-Point  education,  was  so  ignorant  as  not  to  know  that  his  statements  about 
having  conquered  the  State  of  Ohio  from  the  Shawnees,  the  French,  and  the 
English,  were  untrue.  Almost  every  schoolboy  knows,  and,  in  view  of  his  Con 
necticut  origin,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  General  Sherman  did  not  know,  that 
the  State  of  Ohio  is  a  monument  of  the  magnificent  patriotism  of  the  State  of 
Virginia  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  directly  opposite  characteristics  of  the  State 
of  Connecticut  on  the  other.  Excepting  only  the  "  Connecticitt  Reserve"  the 
State  of  Ohio  is  a  part  of  that  "  magnificent  gift"  from  the  State  of  Virginia, 
which  was  conveyed  to  the  United  States  by  a  deed  executed  and  signed  by 
Thomas  Jefferson,  Samuel  Hardy,  Arthur  Lee,  and  James  Monroe,  on  the  1st  of 
May,  1784,  and  which  so  excited  the  admiration  of  the  great  Webster.  It  would 
seem,  therefore,  almost  an  act  of  madness  for  General  Sherman  thus  to  subject 
himself  to  the  risk  of  being  thought  so  ignorant  on  the  one  hand,  or  so  prone  to 
imaginative  statements,  destitute  of  truth,  on  the  other.  But  there  was  a  method 
in  this  madness.  Unfortunately  mankind  are  so  constituted,  as  the  history  of  all 
successful  usurpations  proves,  that  nothing  is  so  well  calculated  to  attract  adhe 
rents  as  the  idea  that  their  leader  is  ready  to  give  to  them  all  the  property  of  his 
opponents  "  that  his  quartermasters  can't  take  possession  of,  or  don't  want." 

Connected  with  the  destruction  of  Columbia  is  a  question  of  some  curious 
interest.  It  appears  from  a  pamphlet  published  to  vindicate  General  Hampton 
from  the  charge  brought  against  him  by  General  Sherman,  that  the  soldiers,  who 
did  the  burning,  said  that  the  duty  of  burning  Columbia  was  assigned  to  them  as 
a  special  honor  or  privilege.  The  theory  of  the  writer  of  the  pamphlet  was,  that 
the  reason  of  this  assignment  was,  that  there  were  no  Roman  Catholics  among 
them ;  and  that  all  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Sherman's  army  were  carefully  and 
purposely  kept  out  of  the  city,  because  they  were  opposed  to  the  burning,  lest  the 
Roman  Catholic  instittition  in  that  city  shotild  be  involved  in  its  destruction.  If 
this  theory  was  correct,  the  Roman  Catholics  may  well  be  proud  of  their  exclu 
sion  from  a  participation  in  the  honor  (?)  of  burning  down  the  (falsely  so-called) 
"  hotbed  and  cradle  of  secession" 

The  city  of  Atlanta,  Georgia,  was  also  surrendered  by  the  mayor  to  General 
Sherman,  under  a  "  solemn  promise"  of  protection  to  noncombatants  and  pri 
vate  property.  Even  General  Sherman  will  hardly  dare  to  assert  that  the 


296  HISTORY    OF    THE 

iards,  Gauls,  had  reached  the  regime  of  freedmen.  The  Franks, 
Burgundians,  Saxons,  and  Visigoths  were,  still  under  the  regime  of 

"  citizens  of  Atlanta  set  fire  to  thousands  of  bales  of  cotton  rolled  out  into  the 
streets,"  or  that  they  "  were  burning  before  he  entered  the  city."  For  he  stayed 
in  Atlanta  many  weeks.  In  spite  of  his  "solemn  promise,"  he  gave  the  city  up 
to  sack  and  pillage.  He  gave  his  soldiers  "authority  to  seize  and  keep  all  that 
his  quartermasters  could  n't  take  possession  of,  or  did  n't  want."  When  he  was 
about  to  leave,  he  burned  the  city  of  Atlanta  to  the  ground,  "  deliberately,  sys 
tematically,  and  atrociously."  An  eyewitness  assures  us  that,  at  the  lowest  calcu 
lation,  500  pianos,  the  private  property  of  the  ladies  of  Atlanta,  were  taken  and 
sent  North  before  the  burning. 

Attila,  Alaric,  Genghis  Khan  —  the  barbarous  Hun,  the  brutal  Goth,  the  savage 
Tartar  —  sacked  and  burned  cities;  but  not  after  they  had  pledged  a  soldier's 
honor  for  the  protection  of  private  property.  Had  they  been  guilty  of  such 
"  enormous  crime,"  yet  they  would  have  scorned  to  "  slander  "  so  spotless  a  name 
as  that  of  Wade  Hampton. 

POSTSCRIPT. —  Washington,  May  29, 1871. — To-day,  a  friend  met  me  and  said  : 
"  What  do  you  think  now  of  your  friends,  the  communists  ?  They  have  burned 
the  greater  part  of  Paris,  and  have  murdered  the  archbishop  and  many  priests." 
I  replied  :  "  The  first  part  of  the  statement  may  be  true.  A  great  part  of  Paris 
may  have  been  burned ;  but  if  so,  I  do  not  believe  that  it  was  deliberate,  sys 
tematic,  atrocious,  like  the  burning  of  Atlanta  and  Columbia.  Certain  it  is,  that 
the  fires  of  Paris  did  not  occur  after  a  surrender  tendered  and  accepted,  but  in 
the  heat  of  the  fight ;  and  they  were  most  probably  accidental.  As  to  the  latter 
part  of  the  statement,  I  hope  it  is  not  true,  and  I  do  not  believe  it."  He  said: 
"  Our  minister,  Mr.  Washburne,  telegraphs  it  officially."  I  replied :  "  Perhaps 
as  a  mere  rumor,  started  by  the  imperialists  and  monarchists,  to  cast  odium  on 
the  name  and  cause  of  the  republican  communists.  Moreover,  there  is  much 
reason  to  believe  that  Mr.  Washburne  is  himself  an  imperialist,  as  anxious  as  Gov 
ernor  Holden  to  see  General  Grant  an  emperor,  and  his  son  succeed  him  as  em 
peror.  I  take  such  telegrams  from  Mr.  Washburne  cum  grano  salts,  and  await  more 
reliable  information.  Besides,  in  judging  the  communists,  whom  our  imperialist 
journals  delight  in  stigmatizing  as  '  the  dangerous  classes,'  we  must  not  forget 
that  they  have  to  carry  the  worse  than  dead  weight  of  the  three  branches  of  the 
proletariat — the  beggars,  prostitutes,  and  thieves  —  for  whose  misdeeds  the 
imperialists  are  more  responsible  than  the  working  classes,  though  they  are  all 
charged  to  the  latter." 

A  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  said  to  me  a  few  days  since  :  "  It  has  always 
surprised  me  that  no  Southern  man  has  ever  taken  the  trouble  to  contradict  a 
charge,  which  was  made  against  the  rebels  during  the  war,  and  which  excited  more 
bitter  feeling  against  them  at  the  North  than  almost  everything  else  that  they  were 
charged  with.  I  myself  know  that  there  was  not  one  word  of  truth  in  the  charge." 
I  asked  :  "  What  do  you  refer  to?  "  He  replied :  "  To  the  charge  that  the  rebels 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES. 

slavery.  The  former  had  produced  around  them  a  multitude  of 
municipalities,  in  which  the  slave  races  entirely  effaced,  by  the 

set  fire  to  the  woods  in  the  Wilderness  for  the  purpose  of  burning  up  the  Union 
wounded.  I  know  that  this  charge  was  untrue,  for  I  was  in  all  those  fights.  The 
ground  was  covered  with  dry  leaves,  which  took  fire  accidentally  from  the  burning 
paper  of  the  cartridges  which  fell  among  the  leaves.  The  rebels  had  no  more 
to  do  in  starting  the  fire  than  we  had ;  and  as  many  of  the  rebel  wounded  per 
ished  by  the  fire  as  of  our  men.  But  this  story  was  almost  universally  believed 
at  the  time.  I  have  never  seen  any  contradiction  of  it,  and  to  this  day  thousands 
of  our  people  believe  that  the  rebels  fired  the  woods  purposely  to  burn  up  our 
wounded." 

June  1st,  1871. —  I  have  just  received  the  following: 

ATLANTA,  GA.,  May  29,  1871. 
Mr.  B.  E. "GREEN: 

Dear  Sir — I  received  yours  of  the  23d  inst.,  requesting  me 
to  send  you  a  copy  of  the  correspondence  between  General 
Sherman  and  myself  in  regard  to  the  surrender  of  Atlanta, 
and  the  protection  afforded  by  him. 

I  lost  the  manuscript  copy  of  my  letter  and  his  original 
letter  to  me  in  reply,  but  you  will  find  them  in  the  book  con 
taining  the  history  of  his  march  through  Georgia.  I  forget 
who  wrote  it,  but  presume  you  can  find  it  in  any  of  the  book 
stores  at  Washington.  That  copy  is  correct. 

The  correspondence  did  not  relate  to  the  surrender  of  At 
lanta,  as  that  took  place  about  a  week  before.  My  letter  was 
one  of  expostulation  against  his  order  exiling  the  citizens, 
and  asking  him  to  revoke  or  modify  it;  and  his  was  a  long 
argumentative  letter  in  reply. 

I  send  you  a  brief  history  of  the  circumstances  attending 
the  surrender,  copied  from  the  Atlanta  City  Directory,  which 
is  substantially  correct.  You  will  see  I  surrendered  the  city 
to  Colonel  Coburn,  of  General  Ward's  Division  of  Slocum's 
Corps ;  and  you  will  see  that  Colonel  Coburn  promised  pro 
tection  to  private  property,  and  that  the  words  used  by  me 
were  reduced  to  writing  the  next  day  at  his  request ;  but  his 
were  not.  I  did  not  notify  General  Sherman  of  his  promise, 

20 


298  HISTORY    OF    THE 

privileges  of  burghership,  the  almost  forgotten  stain  of  their  origin. 
The  latter  still  lived  in  pure  feudalism,  without  any  mixture  of  com- 

and  acted  on  the  presumption  that  he  knew  what  his  officers 
did  in  so  important  a  matter;  but  in  thinking  about  it  since, 
I  have  concluded  that  it  might  be  this  promise  of  Colonel 
Coburn  never  came  to  his  knowledge,  else  he  would  not  have 
allowed  the  houses  and  other  property  of  poor  widows  and  orphans 
to  be  burned  up.  And  I  think  so  for  this  reason,  also  :  General 
Sherman,  for  the  most  part,  was  very  particular  to  observe  all 
the  promises  he  made  to  me.  For  instance,  he  told  me  to 
cause  the  citizens  to  put  their  fine  furniture  in  one  of  the 
chufrches,  and  he  would  guard  it,  etc.  They  did  put  as  much 
of  it  in  one  house  as  it  would  hold,  and  he  did  guard  it.  That 
house,  I  don't  suppose,  held  the  hundredth  part. 

When  I  was  verbally  complaining  to  him  of  the  hardship 
of  expulsion,  and  the  loss  of  property  it  would  occasion,  etc., 
he  told  me  they  might  take  out  every  "smithering"  of  their 
personal  property ;  but,  notwithstanding  I  reminded  him  of 
the  promise,  he  would  not  allow  them  to  take  out  cotton, 
tobacco,  spirits,  and  cattle. 

One  day  I  told  him  a  poor  widow  wanted  to  take  out  her 
milch  cow,  and  his  officers  would  not  allow  her.  He  replied 
he  "  reckoned  it  would  be  difficult  to  drive  a  fat  cow  by  the 
commissary's  office."  He  had  probably  forgotten  his  promise. 
My  cows  were  taken,  and  others.  Some  did  take  them  out. 
The  officers  prevented  buggies  from  being  taken  out.  This 
was  probably  without  the  General's  knowledge.  I  supposed 
they  wanted  them  for  their  own  use.  If  I  was  well,  and  had 
more  time,  I  might  throw  more  light  on  the  subject.  Yours, 
etc.,  JAMES  M.  CALHOUN. 

(Extract  from  the  Register  of  the  City  of  Atlanta.) 

On  the  morning  and  until  the  night  of  the  1st  of  Septem 
ber,  1864,  Major-General  Stewart's  Corps,  General  Ferguson's 
brigade  of  cavalry,  and  the  Georgia  militia  were  in  the  city. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  299 

mime  or  trade's  union — all  masters,  all  seigniors,  all  barons,  all 
kings. 

and  a  corps  under  command  of  General  S.  D.  Lee  came  within 
six  miles  of  Atlanta,  (to  Killis  Brown's,  on  South  River.)  In 
the  afternoon,  General  Slocum's  command  were  at  the  Chat- 
tahoochie  River,  eight  miles  distant.  At  night,  the  Confed 
erate  forces  were  withdrawn  from  the  city,  except  Ferguson's 
brigade ;  and  the  following  day,  the  Hon.  James  M.  Calhoun, 
then  Mayor  of  Atlanta,  with  a  committee  of  some  twelve  citi 
zens,  after  going  more  than  two  miles  up  the  Marietta  road, 
and  first  meeting  with  Captain  Scott,  obtained  an  interview 
with  Colonel  John  Coburn,  of  Indianapolis,  Indiana,  the  sub 
stance  of  which  we  give  below. 

After  having  been  introduced  by  Captain  Scott,  Mayor  Cal 
houn  said :  "  Colonel  Coburn,  the  fortunes  of  war  have  placed 
Atlanta  in  your  hands.  As  mayor  of  the  city,  I  come  to  ask 
protection  for  noncombatants  and  for  private  property."  To 
this  Colonel  Coburn  replied  :  "  We  did  not  come  to  make  war 
on  noncombatants,  nor  on  private  property.  Both  shall  be 
respected  and  protected  by  us."  On  this  day,  also,  the  com 
mand  of  General  Slocum  regularly  invested  the  city,  General 
W.  T.  Sherman  himself  coming  in  September  the  7th.  On 
the  morning  of  the  3d,  the  above  remarks  on  the  part  of 
Mayor  Calhoun  were,  by  request,  reduced  to  writing,  and 
addressed  to  General  Ward  instead  of  Colonel  Coburn ;  but 
the  reply  was  not  reduced  to  writing. 

The  foregoing  calls  for  a  few  brief  comments. 

1st.  All  honor  to  the  brave  men  of  the  United  States  armies  —  and  they  were 
not  a  few — who  did  not  go  South  to  make  war  on  noncombatants,  (that  is,  women 
and  children,)  nor  on  private  property.  They  were  not  Vandals. 

2d.  How  should  we  characterize  the  general,  who  in  the  moment  of  victory 
could  so  brutally  make  a  jest  of  the  petition  of  a  "poor  widow  "  ? 

3d.  Ex-Mayor  Calhoun's  handwriting  bears  the  tremulous  impress  of  age  and 
sickness.  See  how,  by  their  softening  influence  on  the  heart,  charity,  which  covers 
a  multitude  of  sins,  seeks  to  find  some  palliation  for  the  great  spoiler!  But  his 
"enormous  crime"  burns  through  the  mantle  of  that  charity,  which,  hoping  all 


3OO  HISTORY    OF    THE 

We  may,  then,  compare  the  peoples  of  the  South  and  the  peo 
ples  of  the  North,  toward  the  fifth  century,*to  two  liquids  at  differ- 

things,  believing  all  things,  would  even  hope,  if  there  was  no  room  to  believe, 
that  "  it  might  be"  he  did  not  know,  or  had  forgotten,  that  through  his  officers  he 
had  promised  protection  to  women  and  children  and  to  private  property.  When 
the  ex-mayor  comes  to  speak  of  how  General  Sherman  did  keep  a  promise  to  him, 
his  charity  becomes  sarcasm  as  bitter  as  that  of  the  Yankee  soldier,  who  said  to 
his  comrade  Charley,  "I  believe  Sherman  has  set  the  river  on  fire."  Sherman, 
wanting  to  get  together  all  the  fine  furniture  and  articles  of  value  which  might 
otherwise  be  concealed,  told  the  mayor  to  cause  the  citizens  to  put  them  in  one  of 
the  churches,  and  he  would  guard  it.  He  did  guard  it,  from,  not  for,  the  owners. 
It  was  a  "  wooden-nutmeg"  trick — shrewd,  but  not  consistent  with  the  ideas  of  a  sol 
dier's  honor,  as  understood  by  Robert  E.  Lee,  Stonewall  Jackson,  Joseph  E.  John 
ston,  John  B.  Gordon,  Hood,  and  others  of  that  stamp  —  to  get  all  the  fine  furniture 
and  other  valuable  personal  property  together,  so  that  his  men  could  more  con 
veniently  "keep  all  that  his  quartermasters  cotddrit  take  possession  of,  or  didn't 
want"  and  that  he  might  more  surely  burn  and  smither  what  his  men  didn't  care 
to  keep. 

4th.  Worcester  gives  this  definition  : 

Smithers,  n.  pi.,  fragments,  atoms.     (Local  Eng.}     Halliwell. 

General  Sherman's  promise  to  the  mayor,  that  the  women  and  children,  whom 
he  was  driving  from  their  homes,  might  take  out  every  "  smithering"  of  their  per 
sonal  property,  was  made  to  the  ear,  with  the  intent  of  breaking  it  to  the  hope. 
He  intended  first  to  smither  it  into  fragments,  and  then  they  might  take  out  the 
atoms,  if  they  could.  This  corresponds  with  what  he  said  at  Memphis  before  the 
Vicksburg  campaign :  that  he  "  did  not  intend  to  leave  to  any  old  woman  in  the 

South  even  her ;  "  using  the  most  vulgar  term  for  that  necessary  domestic 

utensil,  with  which  an  old  woman  of  antiquity  is  said  to  have  slain  as  great  a 
warrior  as  Sherman,  by  throwing  it  from  a  housetop.  Perhaps  General  Sher 
man's  resolve  to  smither  the  crockery  of  all  the  old  women  in  the  South  may  have 
been  suggested  by  a  prudent  precaution  against  a  similar  tragic  end  for  himself. 

Colonels  Bowman  and  Irwin,  in  their  Sherman  and  his  Campaigns,  page  222, 
say: 

"  On  the  nth  of  September,  the  town  authorities  addressed  the  following  peti 
tion  to  General  Sherman,  praying  the  revocation  of  his  orders : 

"'Sir — The  undersigned,  mayor,  and  two  members  of 
council  for  the  city  of  Atlanta,  for  the  time  being  the  only 
legal  organ  of  the  people  of  the  said  city  to  express  their 
wants  and  wishes,  ask  leave,  most  earnestly,  but  respectfully, 
to  petition  you  to  reconsider  the  order  requiring  them  to  leave 
Atlanta. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  3OI 

ent  degrees  of  saturation  — one  ready  to  crystallize  ;  the  other,  more 
limpid,  more  corrosive,  farther  from  the  condensation  of  its  ele- 

"  '  At  first  view,  it  struck  us  that  the  measure  would  involve 
extraordinary  hardship  and  loss ;  but  since  we  have  seen  the 
practical  execution  of  it,  so  far  as  it  has  progressed,  and  the 
individual  condition  of  many  of  the  people,  and  heard  their 
statements  as  to  the  inconveniences,  loss,  and  suffering  attend 
ing  it,  we  are  satisfied  that  it  will  involve,  in  the  aggregate, 
consequences  appalling  and  heart-rending. 

" '  Many  poor  women  are  in  an  advanced  state  of  preg 
nancy  ;  others,  now  having  young  children,  and  whose  hus 
bands  are  either  in  the  army,  prisoners,  or  dead.  Some  say  : 
I  have  such  a  one  sick  at  home  ;  who  will  wait  on  them  when 
I  am  gone  ?  Others  say :  What  are  we  to  do  ?  We  have  no 
houses  to  go  to,  and  no  means  to  buy,  build,  or  to  rent  any 
—  no  parents,  friends,  or  relatives  to  go  to.  Another  says : 
I  will  try  to  take  this  or  that  article  of  property,  but  such 
and  such  things  I  must  leave  behind,  though  I  need  them 
much.  We  reply  to  them  :  General  Sherman  will  carry  your 
property  to  Rough  and  Ready,  and  General  Hood  will  take  it 
from  there  on.  And  they  will  reply  to  that:  But  I  want  to 
leave  the  railway  at  such  a  point,  and  cannot  get  conveyance 
from  there  on. 

"'We  only  refer  to  a  few  facts,  to  illustrate,  in  part,  how 
this  measure  will  operate  in  practice.  As  you  advanced,  the 
people  north  of  us  fell  back,  and  before  your  arrival  here,  a 
large  portion  of  the  people  had  retired  south ;  so  that  the 
country  south  of  this  is  already  crowded,  and  without  houses 
to  accommodate  the  people  ;  and  we  are  informed  that  many 
are  now  starving  in  churches  and  other  out-buildings.  This 
being  so,  how  is  it  possible  for  the  people  still  here  (mostly 
women  and  children)  to  find  any  shelter?  And  how  can  they 
live  through  the  winter  in  the  woods  —  no  shelter  nor  subsist 
ence — in  the  midst  of  strangers  who  know  them  not,  and  with 
out  the  power  to  assist  them,  if  they  were  willing  to  do  so  ? 


3O2  HISTORY    OF    THE 

ments  —  and  when  their  mixture  took  place,  that  one  of  the  two 
which  was  nearest  to  crystallization  was  suddenly  thrown  back,  and, 

"  '  This  is  but  a  feeble  picture  of  the  consequences  of  this 
measure.  You  know  the  woe,  the  horror,  and  the  suffering 
cannot  be  described  by  words.  Imagination  can  only  con 
ceive  of  it ;  and  we  ask  you  to  take  these  things  into  consid 
eration. 

"  'We  know  your  mind  and  time  are  constantly  occupied 
with  the  duties  of  your  command,  which  almost  deters  us 
from  asking  your  attention  to  this  matter ;  but  we  thought  it 
might  be  that  you  had  not  considered  the  subject  in  all  its 
awful  consequences,  and  that  on  more  reflection  you,  we  hope, 
would  not  make  this  people  an  exception  to  all  mankind ;  for 
we  know  of  no  such  instance  ever  having  occurred — surely 
none  such  in  the  United  States.  And  what  has  this  helpless 
people  done,  that  they  should  be  driven  from  their  homes,  to 
wander  as  strangers,  outcasts,  and  exiles,  and  to  subsist  on 
charity  ? 

"  '  We  do  not  know,  as  yet,  the  number  of  people  still  here. 
Of  those  who  are  here,  we  are  satisfied  a  respectable  number, 
if  allowed  to  remain  at  home,  could  subsist  for  several  months 
without  assistance,  and  a  respectable  number  for  a  much  longer 
time,  and  who  might  not  need  assistance  at  all. 

"  '  In  conclusion,  we  most  earnestly  and  solemnly  petition 
you  to  reconsider  this  order,  or  modify  it,  and  suffer  this  un 
fortunate  people  to  remain  at  home  and  enjoy  what  little 
means  they  have.  Respectfully  submitted. 

"  'JAMES  M.  CALHOUN,  Mayor. 
"  '  E.  E.  RAWSON,  Councilman. 
"  '  L.  C.  WELLS,  Councilman:  " 

Page  226.  —  "  As  soon  as  his  arrangements  were  completed,  General  Sherman 
wrote  to  General  Hood  by  a  flag  of  truce,  notifying  him  of  his  orders,  and  pro 
posing  a  cessation  of  hostilities  for  ten  days  from  the  I2th  of  September,  in  the 
country  included  within  a  radius  of  two  miles  around  Rough  and  Ready  station, 
to  enable  him  to  complete  the  removal  of  those  families  electing  to  go  south. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  303 

in  an  instant,  all  the  embryos  of  sediments  which  were  already  de 
posited  on  the  sides  of  the  vase  dissolved  and  vanished. 

Hood  immediately  replied,  on  the  Qth,  acceding  to  the  proposed  truce,  but  pro 
testing  against  Sherman's  order.  He  concluded  : 

" '  Permit  me  to  say,  the  unprecedented  measure  you  propose  transcends  in 
studied  and  iniquitous  cruelty  all  acts  ever  before  brought  to  my  attention  in  this 
dark  history  of  the  war.  In  the  name  of  God  and  humanity,  I  protest,  believing 
you  are  expelling  from  homes  and  firesides  wives  and  children  of  a  brave  people.'  " 

Porus,  after  a  brave  and  stubborn  resistance,  was  defeated  and  brought  captive 
before  Alexander.  The  latter  asked:  "What  have  you  to  say?"  Porus  an 
swered  :  "  That  you  shall  treat  me  as  a  king."  Alexander  said:  "Make  of  me 
some  special  request."  Porus  replied:  "  Everything  is  included  in  what  I  have 
said."  Alexander  restored  him  to  his  throne,  added  to  his  dominions,  and  made 
him  a  friend. 

Mark  the  contrast ! 

After  a  brave  and  stubborn  resistance  of  the  Confederate  armies,  the  captive 
women  and  children  kneel  at  the  feet  of  the  victor,  Sherman ;  some  far  advanced 
in  pregnancy,  some  "  in  the  perils  of  childbirth,"  some  with  babes  just  born. 
Mark  this,  ye  working  and  burgher  classes  of  the  North,  who  were  deceived  into 
believing  that  the  war  was  made  to  put  down  the  rebellion  of  a  slaveholding  aris 
tocracy.  General  Sherman's  own  aide-de-camp  tells  us  that  these  suppliant  women 
and  children  were  "almost  entirely  of  the  lower  class"  They  were  the  wives 
and  children  of  the  white  working  and  burgher  classes  of  the  South.  They  came 
beseeching  General  Sherman  to  treat  them  as  women  and  children. 

How  did  he  reply  to  their  supplications  ?     Practically,  his  answer  was : 

"  I,  at  the  head  of  my  army,  and  my  brother  John  in  the  Senate,  have  an 
understanding  with  the  imperialists  and  with  the  capital  that  hires  labor.  I 
want  to  be  an  emperor ;  my  brother,  the  senator,  wants  to  get  rich.  The  capital 
that  hires  labor  wants  to  reduce  wages,  increase  the  cost  of  living,  make  labor 
pay  the  taxes,  spend  those  taxes  for  the  profit  of  capital,  and  establish  a  moneyed 
aristocracy,  freed  from  the  restraints  of  all  usury  laws. 

"  Now,  your,  fathers  and  husbands  and  brothers  and  sons  and  sweethearts  are 
opposing  us  —  have  committed  the  great  crime  of  fighting  us,  who  came  to  divorce 
capital  from  labor  in  the  South.  For  their  great  crime  I  intend  to  punish  you. 
I  will  not  leave  to  any  old  woman  among  you,  out  of  her  crockery,  so  much  as  a 

I  will  drive  you  from  your  homes  to  starvation  or  worse.  I  will  smith  er 

into  fragments  your  little  property,  and  you  can  take  the  fragments  with  you  into 
exile,  if  you  can.  For  my  purpose  is  to  burn  !  BURN  !  BURN !  " 

But  let  the  horrible  story  be  told  in  the  words  of  the  great  modern  Vandal's 
own  aide-de-camp,  Brevet-Major  George  Ward  Nichols.  He  says : 

Page  23. — "  A  long  train  of  wagons  and  ambulances  from  Atlanta,  provided 
by  General  Sherman,  had  driven  into  the  space  between  the  outposts,  and  de 
posited  their  freight  of  women  and  children  with  (the  smitherings  of)  their  house- 


304  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Thus,  the  arrival  of  the  peoples  of  the  North  truly  arrested  the 
peoples  of  the  South  in  their  progress ;  it  suspended  emancipations, 

hold  furniture.  These  people  seemed  to  be  almost  entirely  of  the  lower  class.  The 
wealthier  citizens  removed  from  Atlanta  -when  the  firing  began,  those  only  remain 
ing  who  were  willing  to  take  the  risk  of  shot  and  shell,  and  the  possibility  of  federal 
occupation. 

"  The  dust  from  our  wagons  had  hardly  subsided,  when  the  sharp  crack  of  the 
whip  and  the  loud  cries  of  the  train-masters  and  mule-drivers  announced  the 
arrival  of  the  rebel  convoy  to  remove  the  people  (that  is,  the  women  and  children) 
whom  General  Sherman  had  refused  to  permit  Hood  to  throw  upon  him  as  a 
burden." 

Page  26.  —  "  Meanwhile,  under  Sherman's  orders,  the  removal  of  the  citizens 
of  Atlanta  outside  our  lines  was  continued.  .  .  .  The  rebels  howled  forth  threats 
and  objurgations  at  what  they  termed  a  fiendish  act  of  cruelty;  but  General  Sher 
man  little  heeded  their  ravings.  He  had  taken  this  step  only  after  due  premedita 
tion.  Atlanta  was  a  captured  city.  ...  It  would  have  been  an  absurd  incongruity 
daily  to  fill  the  mouths  of  the  wives  and  children  of  men  in  arms  against  the 
Government." 

Page  37. —  "  Nov.  I3th.  Behind  us  we  leave  a  track  of  smoke  and  flame. 
Half  of  Marietta  was  burned  up  —  not  by  orders,  however;  for  the  command  is 
that  proper  details  shall  be  made  to  destroy  all  property  which  can  ever  be  of  use 
to  the  rebel  armies.  Stragglers  will  get  into  these  places,  and  dwelling-houses 
are  levelled  to  the  ground.  In  nearly  all  cases  these  are  the  deserted  habitations 
formerly  owned  by  rebels  who  are  now  refugees.  Yesterday,  as  some  of  our 
men  were  marching  toward  the  Chattahoochie,  River,  they  saw  in  the  distance 
pillars  of  smoke  rising  along  its  banks —  the  bridges  were  in  flames.  Said  one, 
hitching  his  musket  on  his  shoulder  in  a  free  and  easy  way  :  "  I  say,  Charley,  I 
believe  Sherman  has  set  the  river  on  fire." 

(The  aide  heard  the  words  of  the  soldier,  but  was  so  blinded  by  the  smoke 
that  he  could  not  see  the  point  of  this  bitter  sarcasm  on  the  General.) 

Page  38.— "Atlanta  is  entirely  deserted  by  human  beings,  excepting  a  few 
soldiers  here  and  there.  The  houses  are  vacant;  there  is  no  trade  or  traffic  of 
any  kind ;  the  streets  are  empty.  Beautiful  roses  bloom  in  the  gardens  of  fine 
houses ;  but  a  terrible  stillness  and  solitude  covers  all,  depressing  the  hearts  even 
of  those  who  are  glad  to  destroy  it.  In  the  peaceful  homes  of  the  North  there  can 
be  no  conception  how  these  people  have  suffered  for  their  crimes." 

"Atlanta,  night  of  the  \^th  November.  A  grand  and  awful  spectacle  is  pre 
sented  to  the  beholder  in  this  beautiful  city,  now  in  flames.  By  order,  the  chief 
engineer  has  destroyed  by  powder  and  fire  all  the  store-houses,  depot-buildings, 
and  machine-shops.  The  heaven  is  one  expanse  of  lurid  fire ;  the  air  is  filled 
with  flying  burning  cinders  ;  buildings  covering  two  hundred  acres  are  in  ruins 
or  in  flames.  Every  instant  there  is  the  sharp  detonation  or  the  smothered  boom 
ing  sound  of  exploding  shells  and  powder,  concealed  in  the  buildings ;  and  then 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  305 

rendered  impossible  the  communes  and  trades'  unions  which  were 
ready  to  be  formed,  and  dried  up  the  source  of  the  communes  and 

the  sparks  and  flame  shoot  away  up  into  the  black  and  red  roof,  scattering  cinders 
far  and  wide." 

Page  41. — "  A  brigade  of  Massachusetts  soldiers  are  the  only  troops  now  left 
in  the  town ;  they  will  be  the  last  to  leave  it.  To-night  I  heard  the  really  fine 
band  of  the  Thirty-third  Massachusetts  playing  '  John  Brown's  soul  goes  march 
ing  on,'  by  the  light  of  the  burning  buildings.  I  have  never  heard  that  noble 
anthem  when  it  was  so  grand,  so  solemn,  so  inspiring." 

Nero  was  a  great  artist,  (see  page  232.)  His  enjoyment  of  the  sight  of  burning 
Rome  was  enhanced  by  the  music  of  his  own  fiddle.  General  Sherman  also  is  a 
great  artist  in  "studied  and  iniquitous  cruelty,"  in  punishing  women  and  children 
for  the  crimes  of  their  male  relatives,  and  in  Vandal  incendiarism.  It  was  alto 
gether  a  fitting  and  artistic  climax,  this  band  of  a  Massachusetts  regiment  play 
ing  "John  Brown's  soul  goes  marching  on,"  by  the  light  of  the  burning  buildings 
of  Atlanta,  on  that  night  of  the  I5th  November. 

The  great  Webster  once  represented  Massachusetts  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States.  Speaking  there  for  her,  in  reference  to  the  gift  by  Virginia  of  those  lands 
in  Ohio,  which  Sherman  claims  to  have  conquered  from  the  Shawnees,  French, 
and  English,  he  said : 

"  And  a  most  magnificent  act  it  was.  I  never  reflect  upon  it  without  a  dispo 
sition  to  do  honor  and  justice  —  and  justice  would  be  the  highest  honor  —  to  Vir 
ginia,  for  the  cession  of  her  Northwestern  territory.  I  will  say,  sir,  it  is  one  of 
her  fairest  claims  to  the  respect  and  gratitude  of  the  United  States,  and  that,  per 
haps,  it  is  only  second  to  that  other  claim  that  attaches  to  her :  that  from  her 
counsels,  and  from  the  intelligence  and  patriotism  of  her  leading  statesmen,  pro 
ceeded  the  first  idea  put  into  practice  of  the  formation  of  a  general  Constitution 
for  the  United  States." 

The  great  Webster  passed  away.  Men  of  very  different  stamp  spoke  for  Mas 
sachusetts  in  the  U.  S.  Senate.  New  ideas  sprang  up  with  new  men.  Almost 
before  the  grand  tones  of  Webster's  majestic  eloquence  had  died  away,  Massa 
chusetts  sent  John  Brown,  a  border-ruffian,  horse-thief,  murderer,  and  incendiary, 
into  Virginia,  to  apply  the  torch  by  night  to  her  peaceful  homes,  and  excite  a  ser 
vile  insurrection,  with  all  its  attendant  horrors. 

How  artistically  appropriate  it  was,  then,  that  on  that  night  of  the  1 5th  No 
vember,  a  brigade  of  Massachusetts  soldiers  should  be  the  last  to  lose  the  glad 
dening  sight  of  the  effects  of  fire  on  the  homes  of  Atlanta  —  on  "  the  beautiful 
roses  blooming  in  the  gardens  of  fine  houses,"  which  (Major  Nichols  says)  they 
were  "glad  to  destroy""—  and  that  a  Massachusetts  band  should  play  "John 
Brown's  soul  goes  marching  on  "  by  the  light  of  the  burning  buildings!  The 
wise  en  scene  was  perfect,  and  placed  General  Sherman  alongside  of  Nero  as  a 
grand  artist  in  INCENDIARISM  WITH  APPROPRIATE  MUSIC. 

For  his  artistic  war  of  starvation  on  the  women  and  children  of  the  white 


3O6  HISTORY    OF    THE 

trades'  unions  already  existing,  viz. ,  emancipations.  Then,  as  we  have 
said  above,  everything  recommenced.  Emancipations  began  anew, 
and  few  at  a  time,  as  in  the  primitive  ages  of  ancient  history.  The 
asylums  so  long  closed  were  reopened ;  and  after  seven  centuries 
of  this  new  preparatory  labor,  the  conquering  races  in  their  turn 
attained  to  the  same  degree  of  civilization  in  which  they  found  the 

"  lower  classes"  of  the  South;  for  his  systematic,  deliberate,  artistic  burning  of 
Atlanta,  Rome,  Marietta,  Columbia,  the  University  of  'Alabama  at  Tuscaloosa, 
etc.,  etc.,  the  advocates  of  imperialism,  low  wages,  and  high  taxes  glorify  him; 
while  they  cry  out  with  well- affected  horror  at  the  barbarism  of  the  republican 
leaders  of  France,  because,  in  all  the  hurry  and  tumults  and  excitements  of  a 
siege,  they  could  not  prevent  a  few  fires,  or  control  the  demoniac  fury  of  strag 
glers.  See  what  the  aide-de-camp  says  of  the  burning  of  Marietta  : 

"  Stragglers  will  get  into  these  places,  and  dwelling-houses  are  levelled  with  the 
ground." 

How  inconsistent !  how  absurd!  how  unjust!  how  hypocritical !  to  praise  Sher 
man  for  burning  systematically  and  artistically,  and  denounce  the  French  repub 
lican  advocates  of  local  self-government,  because  it  was  not  in  their  power  to 
afford  protection  against  fire  to  every  part  of  beleaguered  Paris  ! 

Disgusting  as  is  this  hypocrisy,  of  those  who  wilfully  misrepresent  the  French 
republicans,  it  is  yet  more  sad  to  witness  the  ignorance  of  others,  who,  without 
knowing  what  they  do,  unite  in  vilifying  and  traducing  the  communists,  as  the 
rebels  were  vilified  and  traduced  by  the  false  charge  that  they  purposely  set  fire 
to  the  woods  in  "  the  Wilderness,"  to  burn  up  the  Union  wounded. 

We  read,  this  morning,  in  a  Washington  City  paper,  opposed  to  centralism  and 
imperialism,  the  following : 

"  The  communists  pretended  to  regulate  the  price  of  labor,  and  to  exalt  it,  by 
defiance  of  all  law,  human  and  divine.  Who  can  contemplate  the  sad  spectacle 
of  poverty  and  degradation  which  is  the  work  of  these  infidel  destructives,  without 
a  feeling  of  deep  and  stern  resentment  ?  " 

Now,  all  this  deep  and  stern  resentment,  as  our  readers  will  see  from  our 
author's  very  clear  and  precise  explanation  of  what  a  commune  is,  (see,  ante,  page 
138,)  grows  out  of  a  total  ignorance  and  misapprehension  of  the  subject. 

It  is  not  true  that  "  the  communists  pretended  to  regulate  the  price  of  labor." 
This  was  a  matter  of  the  trades'  unions.  All  that  the  communists  contended 
for  was  the  right  of  local  self-government  —  the  right  to  levy  and  collect 
and  spend  their  own  local  taxes  for  local  purposes,  through  officers  chosen  by 
themselves  from  among  themselves — instead  of  being  tyrannized  over  in  their 
local  affairs,  and  plundered,  by  the  appointees  and  favorites  of  a  central  des 
potism,  emperor,  king,  or  president.  (See,  ante,  p.  138;  see,  also,  note,  pp. 
148-150.) 

The  following  is  taken  from  the  New  York  Herald  of  June  2,  1871  : 


\ 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  307 

races  whom  they  conquered.     Then  they,  also,  had  communes  and 
trades'  unions. 

Seven  hundred  years  of  time  and  efforts  —  from  the  fifth  to  the 

DELESCLUZE'S  DEFENCE. 

WHAT  THE  BROTHER  OF  THE  DEAD  COMMUNIST   LEADER  HAS  TO  SAY  ABOUT 
THE    COMMUNE. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Herald : 

In  spite  of  the  profound  sorrow  I  feel  at  the  assassination  of  my  brother  Charles, 
there  is  one  sentiment  that  encourages  me  to  speak  as  I  do  in  this  letter.  It  is, 
that  his  dear  memory  should  be  placed  beyond  those  perfidious  calumnies  to  which 
the  press  of  New  York  has  given  currency  with  regard  to  the  Commune  of  Paris. 
Whether  it  be  from  ignorance  or  bad  faith,  the  journals  of  this  city  have  been  the 
echo  of  the  misrepresentations  of  the  royalists  at  Versailles.  It  has  been  said 
that  the  Commune  of  Paris  aimed  at  the  destruction  of  private  property ;  that  it 
wanted  to  divide  the  domains  of  the  State ;  that  its  programme  forbade  the  exist 
ence  of  religion  or  of  family  ties  in  society,  etc.  All  these  ridiculous  allegations 
are  nothing  but  lies.  The  Commune  of  Paris  has  nothing  to  do  with  these  doc 
trines,  which  were  originated  by  a  few  misguided  individuals,  ignorant  of  the 
wants  of  our  society.  The  commune  has  never  had  any  other  programme  than 
that  of  building  up  a  republic  in  France,  based  upon  justice  and  morality.  It  has 
claimed,  with  an  energy  and  courage  which  one  day  will  be  admired,  complete 
municipal  franchise  for  its  city,  and,  consequently,  for  other  cities.  It  was  resolved 
to  destroy  the  centralization  of  the  Empire,  and  to  substitute  in  its  place  the  decen 
tralization  of  administration  —  that  is  to  say,  the  right  to  every  commune  to 
govern  its  own  aft'airs.  But  it  meant,  above  all,  to  maintain  the  political  central 
ization  vested  in  a  national  assembly,  to  be  elected  by  all  the  departments,  and 
sitting  in  any  one  city  in  France.  Some  time  hence,  I  shall,  perhaps,  take  occa 
sion  to  give  exact  details  as  to  the  principles  and  the  future  of  the  commune.  To 
day  my  heart  is  too  much  oppressed  for  that  task.  To  return,  therefore,  to  my 
brother.  Never  has  he  had  other  ideas  than  those  above  stated ;  never  did  I 
meet  with  a  man  who  had  more  respect  for  the  rational  laws  of  his  country.  For 
him  the  ties  of  family  were  an  object  to  be  cherished. 

Hear  what  he  said  in  a  book  he  published  in  Paris  after  his  return  from  Cay 
enne,  and  you  will  know  his  thoughts  on  the  subject : 

"  If  there  is  any  one  thing  in  this  life  which  should  be  above  the  combinations 
of  interest  and  the  selfish  exaggeration  of  passions,  which  has  nothing  to  fear 
from  the  reverses  of  fortune,  it  is  undeniably  the  love  of  family — this  mysterious 
chain  which  descends  from  father  and  mother  to  the  children,  and  makes  all  of 
them,  as  it  were,  partakers  of  the  same  life. 

"  How  is  it  that  this  sentiment  only  appears  in  all  its  purity  and  force  in  the 
midst  of  trials  and  sufferings  ?  In  the  course  of  an  existence  which  has  never 
been  clouded  by  tempests,  habit  and  security  seem  to  render  dormant  an  affection 


308  HISTORY    OF    THE 

twelfth  century,  from  Clovis  to  Philip  Augustus  —  were  required  for 
France  to  remount  to  the  level  from  which  the  invasion  precipitated 
her. 

unmenaced  by  danger.  Such  beings  love  as  they  breathe,  without  being  aware 
of  it.  It  is  only  in  evil  days  that  one  knows  the  value  of  these  ties,  if  they  are 
based  on  esteem  and  self-denial." 

Let  those  who  accuse  the  radicals  of  desiring  the  obliteration  of  family  life 
think  on  these  words,  and  they  will  acknowledge,  if  they  are  sincere,  that  this 
sacred  institution,  being,  as  it  is,  the  only  foundation  of  an  advanced  society,  has 
nowhere  had  better  supporters  than  our  poor  vanquished  friends  in  Paris.  And 
how  about  this  war  between  the  two  selfish  and  criminal  monarchs  —  I  mean 
those  of  France  and  Prussia  ?  Was  it  not  vehemently  opposed  before  its  outbreak 
by  the  radicals  ?  The  unanimous  cry  of  all  their  journals  was,  "  No  war." 
Among  them  was  distinguished  the  Reveil,  the  editor  in  chief  of  which  was  my 
brother. 

(Extract  from  the  JReveil,  September  3,  1868.) 

"  France  does  not  want  war,  and  she  proclaims  it  aloud.  She  protests  against 
an  adventurous  policy,  carried  on  in  the  name  of  peace  and  liberty." 

Here  is  another  of  July  26,  1870: 

"  And  what  have  the  people  of  the  Rhine  Provinces  done  to  us  ?  True,  they 
have  been  French,  but  their  interests  and  habits  are  German.  Do  they  ask  us  to 
incorporate  them  with  our  country  ?  No,  not  at  all.  It  is  only  intended  to  revive 
the  spirit  of  imperial  conquest,  to  blind  our  people,  and  to  profit  by  it  by  securing 
the  tottering  dynasty  of  Louis  Bonaparte.  Will  France  follow  this  man,  who  is 
only  absorbed  by  his  personal  interests.  We  hope  not." 

These  quotations  will  suffice.  They  will  free  the  radical  party  in  this  respect 
from  all  responsibility.  From  personal  information  I  have  learned  that  the  inhab 
itants  of  Paris  would  have  eagerly  accepted  a  conciliation,  if  based  on  the  con 
dition  above  mentioned.  In  all  the  sittings  of  the  commune,  my  brother  did  ever 
invoke  the  best  sentiments  of  the  human  heart.  Certainly  he  believed  in  the 
necessity  of  a  revolution,  but  he  desired  to  carry  it  on  without  denying  respect  to 
law  and  public  opinion. 

When  he  was  appointed  deputy,  he  saw  that  in  the  presence  of  a  resistance  of 
the  Parisians  against  the  monarchical  plots  of  Thiers,  it  was  his  duty  to  return  to 
his  electors,  to  remain  with  them  to  the  last,  and  to  await  there  the  triumph  of  the 
right,  whatever  may  be  the  means  necessary  to  attain  it.  He  has  fulfilled  his 
duty.  The  work  which  he  and  others  have  undertaken  will  be  completed  by  the 
future  generation.  But  his  profound  conviction  did  not  efface  the  melancholy 
presentiment  which  weighed  upon  his  mind.  Thus,  during  his  stay  in  the  Min 
istry  of  War,  he,  in  private  conversation,  often  let  out  that  he  had  given  up  all 
hope  of  conciliation,  and  that  he  was  doubtful  of  success  for  the  present.  In  his 
proclamations  he  told  the  National  Guard  that  it  might  happen  that  they  who 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  309 

It  was,  in  fact,  under  Philip  Augustus,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the 
greatest  municipal  movements  of  the  middle  ages  took  place.  Then 
feudalism  finished  its  gestation  of  the  slave  races. 

It  was  also  under  Philip  Augustus  that  the  trades'  unions,  those 
twin-sisters  of  the  communes,  were  formed.  To  better  understand 
their  history,  we  will  clear  away  some  facts,  which  encumber  their 
approach. 

We  have  said,  that,  when  the  invasion  presented  itself  on  the  banks 
of  the  Rhine,  all  Gaul  had  reached  the  regime  of  the  commune. 
The  territory  was  divided  into  one  hundred  and  fifteen  cities,  which 
had  for  their  capitals  one  hundred  and  fifteen  municipal  towns, 
governed  by  one  hundred  and  fifteen  hotels  de  ville.  The  fury  of 
the  barbarians  fell  entirely  upon  the  towns.  In  fact,  the  institutions, 
the  life  were  there.  All  the  towns  were  taken  ;  many  were  ruined. 

The  Abbe  Dubos,  Montesquieu,  M.  de  Savigny,  and  some  others 
have  written  works,  more  or  less  curious,  to  show  how  far  the  bar 
barians  destroyed  the  Roman  government  in  Gaul.  In  our  opinion, 
all  these  historians  have  made  mistakes,  because  they  put  the  ques 
tion  on  a  false  basis.  In  fact,  by  the  government  of  Gaul  under  the 
Romans,  these  historians  have  understood  something  which  was  only 
a  part,  and  a  very  feeble  part,  of  that  government.  They  have 
understood  the  action  which  the  praetorian  prefect  of  the  diocese 
of  Gaul  exercised  in  the  name  of  the  emperors,  through  his  vicar, 
his  seventeen  governors,  his  one  hundred  and  fifteen  counts,  and 
his  four  treasurers-general  of  the  finances  of  the  province.  Now, 
we  repeat,  the  action  of  all  these  officers  constituted  but  a  part,  an 
accessory  part,  of  the  government.  They  established  a  connection 
between  Gaul  and  Rome  or  Constantinople  —  that  was  all  —  but 
they  did  not  govern  it. 

What  governed  Gaul  was  the  municipal  councils,  the  curice.  In 
fact,  the  four  treasurers-general  received  the  taxes;  but  who  levied, 

combated  would  reap  no  advantages  from  the  social  revolutions,  the  fruits  of 
which  will,  however,  certainly  be  enjoyed  by  their  children.  And  he  was  right, 
sir.  On  this  man,  who  was  so  devoted,  so  sincere,  so  much  attached  to  the  right 
—  who  had  throughout  his  life  fought  for  the  right  —  have  the  journals  of  this 
city  cast  a  slur  with  regard  to  his  tragic  death,  making  him  alone  responsible  for 
the  massacres  of  Paris,  caused  by  the  obstinacy,  disloyalty,  and  the  royalist 
intrigues  of  Thiers,  MacMahon,  and  the  like.  HENRY  DELESCLUZE. 


3IO  HISTORY    OF    THE 

9 

who  were  responsible  for  them?  The  municipal  councillors,  or 
curiales.  The  seventeen  governors  commanded  the  troops ;  but 
who  raised  and  who  paid  them  ?  The  curiales.  The  counts  pre 
sided  over  the  tribunals  ;  but  who  composed  them,  who  studied  and 
who  decided  the  causes  ?  The  curiales.  The  real  government  of 
Gaul,  then,  resided  entirely  in  the  municipalities.  The  counts,  the 
governors,  the  treasurers-general,  the  praetorian  prefect  did  nothing 
but  report  the  results  of  this  government  to  the  emperors,  and  in 
some  sort  stamp  his  coat  of  arms  upon  the  province. 

Then  the  question  whether  the  barbarians  destroyed  the  Roman 
government  in  Gaul  is  reduced  to  this :  did  the  barbarians  destroy 
the  municipalities? 

Put  in  these  terms,  the  question  is  at  an  end.  Yes ;  the  barbarians 
did  destroy  the  Roman  government  in  Gaul,  because  they  destroyed 
the  column  which  sustained  the  edifice,  the  soul  which  animated  the 
body.  What  matters  it,  after  that,  that  the  emperors  affected  not  to 
know  that  Gaul  was  no  longer  under  Roman  dominion,  and  that 
Anastasius  conferred  on  Clovis  the  powers  of  praetorian  prefect, 
and  sent  him  the  patrician  robe  ?  Does  that  prove  that  this  dignity 
had  any  real  value  in  a  province  where  the  true  supports  of  govern 
ment  had  perished  ;  where  the  municipalities  —  that  is  to  say,  the 
power  which  was  responsible  for  the  taxes,  which  furnished  the 
troops,  which  administered  justice — were  dispersed?  What  would 
the  Emperor  Anastasius  himself  have  done  with  Gaul,  without  taxes, 
without  soldiers,  without  tribunals  ?  (a) 

(a)  This  suggests  several  questions  relative  to  the  conquest,  by  the  people  of 
the  North,  of  the  people  of  the  South,  in  the  late  civil  war  in  the  United  States. 
First.  Did  the  people  of  the  North  destroy  the  "true  supports"  of  republican 
government  in  the  South? 

Answer.  Yes ;  they  did.  They  tore  down  the  column  that  supported  the  edi 
fice  ;  they  sought  to  destroy  the  soul  that  animated  the  body.  They  sought  to 
disfranchise  the  intelligence,  the  virtue,  and  the  worth  of  the  South,  and  to  place 
the  political,  the  governing,  power  in  the  hands  of  ignorant  negroes  just  emanci 
pated,  suddenly,  and  with  far  less  knowledge  of  the  science  of  government  than 
the  barbarians,  whose  predominance  threw  Europe  back  seven  centuries  in  her 
march  of  progress  and  civilization. 

Second.  Who  did  this  ? 

Answer.  Not  the  people  of  the  North  or  of  the  South  —  not  the  working  and 
burgher  classes  —  but  the  monarchists  and  imperialists  ;  a  few  corrupt  and  design- 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  3!! 

Yes ;  the  barbarians  of  the  invasion  destroyed  the  Roman  govern 
ment  in  Gaul,  because  they  destroyed  there  the  municipalities.  Now, 

ing  men,  "  in  whose  minds,"  to  use  the  language  of  M.  Guizot,  "  the  plans  of  the 
great  machine  were  centred,"  and  who,  like  Governor  Holden  of  North  Caro 
lina,  "wished  to  see  General  Grant  (or  some  other  .despot)  an  emperor,  and  his 
son  succeed  him  as  emperor." 

Third.  Why  did  they  do  this? 

Answer.  For  several  reasons. 

1st.  Because  the  tendency  of  the  Southern  institution  of  negro  slavery,  unlike 
the  white  slavery  of  Europe,  was  to  strengthen  the  principles  of  social  and  polit 
ical  equality  among  all  whites,  a  tendency  odious  to  the  aristocrats,  monarchists, 
and  imperialists  of  the  North. 

2d.  Because  the  tendency  of  negro  slavery,  which  married  Southern  capital  to 
labor,  was  to  a  system  of  high  wages,  cheap  living,  moderate  taxation,  honest 
and  economical  government  expenditures ;  while  the  interests  of  Northern  capital, 
divorced  from  and  hostile  to  labor,  called  for  a  system  of  low  wages,  dear  living, 
oppressive,  unequal,  and' unjust  taxation  of  labor;  wasteful,  corrupt,  and  extrava 
gant  government  expenditures,  for  the projit  of  capital. 

3d.  Because  certain  Northern  leaders  hoped  that  a  very  short  experience  of 
government  by  negro  slaves  — just  emancipated,  without  prevision  or  preparation, 
totally  ignorant  of  the  alphabet,  the  A  B  c  of  political  science,  led,  and,  by  the 
aid  of  Ku-Klux  bills,  controlled  by  white  men  more  depraved  than  the  negro 
slaves  —  would  disgust  the  people  with  republicanism,  and  prepare  them  for  a 
"transition"  to  an  imperial  and  aristocratic  form  of  government. 

Fourth.  What  will  be  the  results  of  such  governments  in  the  South,  sustained 
by  Ku-Klux  bills,  and  upheld  by  fabricated  reports  of  Congressional  committees, 
a  majority  of  whom  repudiate  all  legal  rules  of  evidence  to  accomplish  their 
wicked  partisan  purposes? 

Answer.  A  sudden  and  immense  backset  to  civilization,  and  to  all  develop 
ment,  social,  political,  commercial,  and  industrial.  For  a  few  —  ex.  gr.  for  Gen 
eral  Howard  and  his  brothers  in  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  for  Holden  and  the 
swindler  Littlefield  in  North  Carolina,  for  Governor  Scott  and  his  "  pals  "  in 
South  Carolina,  for  the  bandits  Bullock  and  Blodgett  in  Georgia  —  sudden  and 
immense  fortunes.  For  labor,  Asiatic  wages  and  diet.  For  the  people,  indi 
vidual  and  State  bankruptcy.  For  industry  and  commerce,  paralysis. 

Finally.  If  Gaul  under  the  barbarians  of  the  North  of  Europe  was  worthless 
to  Anastasius,  will  not  the  South,  under  the  deeper  barbarism  of  carpetbag-negro- 
scalawag  misrule,  soon  be  worse  than  worthless  to  the  people  of  the  North  ? 

We  leave  the  answer  to  this  question  to  the  "sober  second  thought"  of  the 
working  and  burgher  classes  of  the  North,  trusting  that  their  own  self-interest 
will  open  their  eyes  to  the  fact  that  they  are  not  benefited  but  directly  injured  by 
permitting  the  South  to  be  plundered  and  impoverished ;  that  the  South  can  only 
be  valuable  to  them  as  customers  in  a  legitimate  trade;  and  that  that  trade  will 


312  HISTORY    OF    THE 

^| 

from  this,  for  the  modern  trades'  unions,  two  consequences  result, 
which  we  proceed  to  deduce,  and  which  will  open  to  us  their  history. 

First,  in  destroying  the  municipalities,  the  barbarians  destroyed 
the  trades'  unions ;  for  the  trades'  union  and  the  municipality,  in 
ancient  as  in  modern  history,  are  two  facts  which  are  never  sepa 
rated.  In  ruining  Spires,  Worms,  Strasbourg,  Rheims,  Amiens, 
Arras,  Tournay,  the  city  of  Morins,  and  all  the  towns  of  the  two 
Aquitaines,  of  Guienne,  Lyonnaise,  and  Narbonnais,  what  could  the 
trades'  unions,  which  had  their  seat  in  those  cities,  do  but  disperse 
and  perish?  Moreover,  these  nomad  people,  living  as  it  were  in 
tents,  composed  exclusively  of  two  species  of  men,  the  nobles  and 
the  slaves,  without  freedmen,  who  precisely  formed  the  trades'  unions 
of  the  Roman  world  —  what  had  they  to  do  with  these  industrial 
and  sedentary  associations  ? 

Secondly,  in  destroying  the  trades'  unions  with  the  municipalities, 
the  barbarians  destroyed  them  in  the  same  manner — that  is  to  say, 
imperfectly  and  gradually.  The  Franks,  Burgundians,  Saxons,  and 
Visigoths  had  not,  and  had  no  idea  of  having,  any  logic  in  their 
destruction.  They  threw  themselves  brutally,  as  soldiers,  athwart 
the  Gallic-Roman  civilization,  and  what  could  save  itself  was  saved. 
Thus,  some  towns,  and  principally  those  which  were  at  the  same 
time  capitals  of  provinces  and  capitals  of  a  diocese,  succeeded,  by 
the  influence  of  the  bishop  and  the  respect  obtained  by  the  Church, 
in  preserving  some  fragments  of  their  municipal  government.  We 
have  already  seen  in  the  course  of  this  book,  that  when  the  edict 
of  Moulins  took  from  the  municipalities  of  the  kingdom  the  juris 
diction  of  civil  matters,  the  hotels  de  ville  of  Rheims,  Toulouse, 
Boulogne,  and  Angouleme  resisted,  alleging  and  proving  that  they 
had  that  jurisdiction  since  the  time  of  the  Romans.  For  this  reason, 
M.  Raynouard  and  M.  de  Savigny  have  produced  a  great  number 
of  documents  establishing  that  the  municipalities  in  Gaul  did  not 
absolutely  perish  in  consequence  of  the  invasion. 

Well !  For  the  same  reason,  we  find  in  the  middle  ages,  long 
before  the  known  establishment  of  modern  trades'  unions,  traces  of 
mysterious  associations  which  the  historian  knows  not  where  to  place. 
These  are  some  lost  children  of  the  vast  system  of  the  Roman  unions 

be  more  and  more  profitable  to  them  as  the  South  becomes  more  and  more  pros 
perous,  and  happy  and  contented  because  prosperous. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  313 

which  the  barbarians  of  the  invasion  overlooked  in  their  seclusion, 
and  which  there  lived  a  poor  and  sickly  life,  deprived  of  air  and 
sunshine  —  that  is  to  say,  deprived  of  their  support,  viz.  emanci 
pations —  like  those  mutilated  and  invalid  municipalities  for  which 
we  must  seek  long  and  minutely  in  the  charters  of  the  first  and 
second  races,  and  whose  history,  fall,  and  misfortunes  must  be 
known  to  recognize  in  them  what  Aulus  Gellius  calls  "  little  Romes, 
made  after  the  image  of  the  great  Rome." 

We  have,  then,  in  the  history  of  the  middle  ages,  two  kinds  of 
trades'  unions,  as  there  were  two  species  of  communes.  These  were, 
first,  the  Roman  unions,  which  perished,  and  of  which  we  find  here 
and  there  the  ruins ;  next,  the  French  unions,  which  came  into  ex 
istence,  or  rather  were  developed,  under  Philip  Augustus,  and  were 
organized  after  the  time  of  St.  Louis. 

For  example,  traces  of  the  Roman  unions  are  recognizable,  among 
other  documents,  in  a  capitular  of  Dagobert  II.,  of  the  year  630, 
concerning  the  organization  of  the  bakers;  in  another  capitular  of 
Charlemagne,  of  the  year  800,  directing  that  the  corporation  of 
bakers  should  have  their  complement  in  the  provinces  ;  in  a  pas 
sage  of  the  edict  of  Pistes,  of  the  year  864,  concerning  the  gold 
smiths'  union  ;  finally,  in  what  Ducange  relates  of  the  rex  arcari- 
orum,  the  rex  arbalestariorum,  the  rex  merceriorum,  the  rex  alata- 
riorum,  the  rex  Juglatorum,  and  the  rex  ministellorum.  Moreover, 
the  modern  bakers'  union  of  Paris  seems  to  have  been  grafted  on 
the  ancient  Roman  corporation ;  for  it  was  subject  to  a  tax  (droit 
tit  haubari)  of  a  hogshead  of  wine  paid  to  the  king  annually,  and 
this  tax  is  mentioned  in  a  capitular  of  Dagobert  II.,  of  the  year 
630,  and  in  another  of  Charlemagne,  of  the  year  803. 

We  have  already  said  that  the  trades'  or  labor  unions  always  de 
velop  themselves  parallel  with  the  communes,  and  we  have  shown 
how  they  were  two  associations  of  the  same  origin,  the  same  nature, 
almost  for  the  same  end.  It  is  in  the  towns,  then,  that  we  must 
seek  for  the  trades'  unions ;  there  where  the  freed  races  concentrate 
in  the  commune.  Now,  although  the  greater  number  of  communes 
differ  in  some  peculiarity  of  their  interior  organization,  and  the 
trades'  unions  of  each  town,  formed  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
persons  and  things  of  that  town,  always  present  something  peculiar 
and  individual,  nevertheless,  both  of  these  two  species  of  associa- 
21 


3H  HISTORY    OF    THE 

9 

tions  are  cast  in  the  same  mould  almost,  and  it  may  be  said  that  it 
is  enough  to  know  one  commune  and  one  trades'  union  to  know  all 
the  communes  and  all  the  trades'  unions.  We  therefore  confine 
ourselves  to  an  exposition  in  detail  of  the  organization  of  the  trades' 
unions  formed  in  the  commune  of  Paris,  which  will  be  in  the  main 
an  exposition  of  all  modern  trades'  or  labor  unions. 

The  first  written  and  official  document  on  the  trades'  unions  of 
Paris  dates  from  the  year  1258,  under  the  reign  of  St.  Lopis.  It 
is  the  ordonnance  of  Stephen  Boileau,  prevot-guard,  known  under 
the  name  of  "Register  of  trades  and  merchandise. ' '  To  better  com 
prehend  the  situation  of  these  unions  in  relation  to  the  government, 
we  must  say  something  of  the  different  powers  which  governed  the 
city  of  Paris  in  the  middle  ages. 

We  have  already  said  that  Paris  had  a  commune  —  that  is  to  say, 
the  right  of  self-government.  The  seat  of  this  government  was  the 
hotel  de  ville,  which  primitively  bore  the  name  of  "Parloir  aux 
bourgeois"  The  inhabitants  of  Paris  were  divided,  like  those  of 
every  communal  city,  into  burghers  and  dwellers.  The  burghers 
were  those  who  were  inscribed  on  the  municipal  rolls,  and  who  en 
joyed  the  right  of  commune.  The  dwellers  were  those  who  had 
their  domicile  in  the  city,  without  participating  in  its  privileges. 

The  government  of  the  city  resided  in  the  municipal  council,  and 
the  supreme  chief  was  a  magistrate,  who  did  not  bear  the  name  of 
mayor,  as  in  most  of  the  communes,  but  that  of  prevot  of  merchants, 
(Prevot  des  marchands.*}  See  the  historic  reason  for  this  special 
nomenclature. 

There  was  at  Paris,  from  the  time  of  Tiberius,  a  Roman  counting- 
house  belonging  to  the  general  union  of  the  boatmen  of  the  empire. 
These  boatmen  carried  on  the  commerce  of  the  river,  and  their 
statutes  served  as  the  basis  of  the  customary  charter  of  Paris  ;  for  this 
charter  was  not  written  until  1411.  Moreover,  in  1170,  Louis  the 
Young,  in  speaking  of  the  custom  of  Paris,  called  it  ancient.  The 
commune  of  Paris  had,  therefore,  this  peculiarity  from  its  origin : 
that  it  was  an  association,  a  commune  of  merchants ;  which  caused 
the  name  of  prevot  of  merchants  to  be  given  to  its  first,  magistrate, 
instead  of  the  name  of  mayor,  which  was  more  usual. 

However,  the  city  did  not  include  the  seigniory  of  the  commune 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  315 

only.  It  also  included  the  seigniory  of  the  king.  The  seigniory 
of  the  king  was  in  virtue  of  his  title  of  viscount,  and  it  was  under 
the  charge  of  a  lieutenant  of  the  king,  who  bore  the  name  of  Prevot 
of  Paris. 

We  therefore  must  not  confound  the  pr6vot  of  merchants  with  the 
Prevot  of  Paris.  The  former  was  a  municipal  magistrate  ;  the  latter 
an  officer  of  the  king ;  and,  consequently,  their  jurisdictions  were 
perfectly  distinct  and  separate. 

Stephen  Boileau,  who  reduced  to  writing  in  1258  the  statutes  of 
the  trades'  unions,  was  Prevot  of  Paris;  that  is  to  say,  the  trades' 
unions  received  their  institution  from  the  royal  power,  like  the 
Roman  trades'  unions  after  the  reign  of  Trajan. 

When  Stephen  Boileau  reduced  to  writing  the  statutes  of  the 
trades'  unions,  they  had  already  long  been  in  existence.  Philip 
Augustus  is  cited  in  many  places  of  the  register,  and  notably  in  the 
first  title,  as  having  regulated  the  trades.  The  prevotal  ordonnance 
of  the  year  1258  did  not,  therefore,  create  the  trades'  unions.  It 
only  brought  them  into  relations  with  the  royal  power;  and  the 
work  of  Stephen  Boileau  consisted  chiefly  in  bringing  together  into 
one  body  the  peculiar  customs  of  each  trade,  most  of  which  had 
probably  never  been  written. 

The  register  of  trades  contained  the  statutes  of  one  hundred  in 
dustrial  professions.  We  give  them  in  the  order  of  the  register,  and 
in  their  bare  announcement  we  have  a  sort  of  summary  of  French 
industry  in  the  thirteenth  century. 

They  were  the  talmeliere,  (bakers,)  the  millers,  the  corn  mer 
chants,  the  grain  measurers,  the  auctioneers,  the  gaugers,  the  tavern 
keepers,  the  beer  brewers,  the  hucksters  of  bread,  salt,  and  sea  fish ; 
the  hucksters  of  fruits  and  vegetables,  the  goldsmiths,  the  tinners, 
the  ropemakers,  the  workmen  in  small  lead  and  tin  wares,  the 
smiths,  (workers  in  iron,)  the  farriers,  the  edge-tool  makers,  the  cut 
lers,  the  locksmiths,  the  box  and  case  makers,  the  brass-wire  beaters, 
the  copper  and  brass  buckler  makers,  the  iron-wire  drawers,  the 
brass-wire  drawers,  the  nail  makers,  the  hauberk  makers,  the  bone- 
bead  makers,  the  coral-bead  makers,  the  amber  and  jet  bead  ma 
kers,  the  glass  cutters,  the  gold  and  silver  thread  beaters,  the  tin 
beaters,  the  gold  and  silver  leaf  beaters,  the  thread  and  silk  net 
makers,  the  spinners  of  silk  with  big  spindles,  the  spinners  of  silk 


316  HISTORY    OF    THE 

^ 

with  little  spindles,  the  thread  and  silk  fringe  makers,  the  workers 
in  silk  tissues,  the  branliers  en  fil,  (breeches  makers,)  the  silk  and 
velvet  drapers,  the  founders,  the  book-clasp  makers,  the  shoe-buckle 
makers,  the  silk  weavers,  the  lamp  makers,  the  barrel  makers,  the 
carpenters,  the  masons,  the  stone  cutters  and  plasterers,  the  dish  and 
cup  makers,  the  cloth  weavers,  the  sarrazinois  (quaere,  Saracen  ?) 
tapestry  makers,  the  common  tapestry  and  coverlet  makers,  the 
fullers,  the  dyers,  the  hosiers,  the  garment  cutters,  the  linen  mer 
chants,  the  hemp  and  thread  merchants,  the  hemp-cloth  merchants, 
the  pin  makers,  the  sculptors  of  images  of  the  saints,  the  painters  of 
images  of  the  saints,  the  oil  makers,  the  tallow-candle  makers,  the 
scabbard  makers,  the  scabbard  trimmers,  the  comb  and  lantern  ma 
kers,  (a}  the  writing-desk  makers,  the  cooks,  the  poulterers,  the  play- 
ing-dice  makers,  the  button  makers,  the  bath  keepers,  the  clay  potters, 
the  mercers,  the  brokers,  the  bursars,  the  house  painters  and  the  sad 
dlers,  the  saddle-tree  makers,  the  blazon  painters  on  saddles,  the  har 
ness  makers,  the  horse-bit  makers,  the  leather  dressers,  thecordwain- 
ers,  the  sheepskin-shoe  makers,  the  cobblers,  the  curriers,  the  glove 
makers,  the  hay  merchants,  the  flower-headdress  makers,  the  felt 
hatters,  the  cotton  hatters,  the  peacock 's-feather  hatters,  the  furriers, 
the  bonnet  makers,  the  furbishers,  the  archers,  the  fishermen  in  the 
king's  waters,  the  fresh-water  fishermen,  and  the  fishermen  of  the  sea. 

If,  before  going  farther,  we  wish  to  find  what  points  of  resem 
blance  the  French  trades'  unions  may  have  had  to  the  Roman 
trades'  unions,  we  must  consider  them  in  their  relation  to  the  chief 
of  the  State,  in  their  relation  to  the  persons  composing  them,  and 
in  their  relation  to  each  other. 

Considered  in  their  relation  to  the  chief  of  the  State,  the  French 
unions  were  divided,  in  the  third  century,  into  two  categories.  The 
first  comprises  those  which  required  an  authorization ;  the  second, 
those  which  were  only  required  to  conform  to  the  regulations  of  the 
trade.  The  Roman  unions  were  never  in  an  analogous  condition  ; 
for  we  have  seen  that  they  were  all  free  by  conforming  to  the  laws 
up  to  the  time  of  Trajan,  and  that  after  that  prince's  time  they  were 
subject  to  a  previous  authorization.  Besides,  this  division  of  the 
unions  seems  to  have  been  very  arbitrary,  or  at  least  it  seems  now 

(a)  Query,  what  natural  connection  was  there  in  the  thirteenth  century  between 
combs  and  lanterns  ?  The  compositor  suggests  that  lantern  frames  as  well  as 
combs  were  made  of  horn. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  317 

impossible  to  find  the  theoretical  reasons  for  it,  if  any  there  were. 
Thus,  sometimes  there  were  professions  of  great  importance  which 
were  free,  as  that  of  goldsmith ;  and  others,  of  small  importance, 
which  required  an  authorization,  as  that  of  farrier.  Sometimes,  on 
the  contrary,  professions  of  great  importance,  as  that  of  baker, 
required  the  royal  authorization  ;  and  others  of  less  consequence,  as 
that  of  ropemaker,  were  only  subject  to  the  customs  of  the  trade. 
We  have  only  observed  one  species  of  trades'  unions  which  were 
always  subject  to  a  previous  authorization,  viz.,  those  which  in 
volved  public  functions  as  it  were,  such  as  auctioneer,  grain  measurer, 
and  ganger. 

The  situation  of  the  free  trades  or  professions  was  very  simple. 
Any  one  could  enter  them  on  three  conditions  :  first,  of  knowing  the 
trade  ;  second,  of  having  the  necessary  capital,  (s'il  a  de  quoi,  says 
the  register;)  third,  of  complying  with  the  customs  which  governed 
the  union.  Subject  to  these  three  conditions,  there  was  no  limit  to 
the  number  of  their  members. 

The  authorized  professions  were  of  two  sorts :  those  which  ob 
tained  their  authorization  from  the  Prevot  of  Paris,  and  those  which 
obtained  their  authorization  from  the  prevot  of  merchants ;  that  is 
to  say,  which  depended  on  the  municipal  authority.  These  were 
limited  to  three,  viz.  grain  measurers,  auctioneers,  and  gaugers. 

Naturally,  the  necessity,  for  certain  professions,  of  a  previous 
authorization,  limited,  or  at  least  restricted  the  number,  which  raised 
them  to  the  condition  of  offices  hereditary  and  salable  for  money, 
provided  always  that  the  heir  or  purchaser  fulfilled  the  conditions 
of  the  trade.  This  is  expressly  stated  in  many  titles  of  the  register, 
and  especially  in  title  L,  relative  to  cloth  weavers. 

To  obtain  permission  to  enter  a  profession,  it  was  necessary,  ac 
cording  to  the  nature  of  that  profession,  to  present  a  petition  either  to 
the  prevot  of  merchants,  at  the  hotel  de  ville,  or  to  the  Prevot  of 
Paris,  at  the  castle.  Then  the  applicant  paid  a  fee  in  silver,  was 
examined  by  the  guards  of  the  trade,  and,  if  admitted,  was  installed, 
having  taken  the  oath. 

Considered  in  reference  to  the  persons  composing  them,  the 
French  unions  had  still  less  resemblance  to  the  Roman  unions.  We 
have  seen  that  from  the  time  of  Constantine  the  latter  formed  a  kind 
of  necessary  corps,  impressing  an  indelible  character,  and  that  none 
who  once  entered  could  ever  leave  them  —  neither  they  nor  theirs; 


3l8  HISTORY    OF    THE 

% 

neither  their  persons  nor  their  property.  No  such  principle  is  ob 
servable  in  the  French  unions.  Their  members  could  always  with 
draw  ;  and,  although  each  profession  possessed  a  common  fund  and 
a  general  treasury,  the  patrimony  of  the  associates  remained  com 
pletely  free  and  invariably  distinct.  This  characteristic,  peculiar  to 
the  trades'  and  labor  unions  of  the  middle  ages,  of  leaving  to  their 
members  perfect  liberty  of  withdrawal,  did  not  prevent  their  being 
connected,  like  the  Roman  unions,  with  the  administrative  system 
of  the  kingdom.  For  St.  Louis  and  his  successors  employed  the 
unions  to  collect  the  taxes.  It  was  the  peculiarity  of  different  an 
cient  institutions,  tainted  with  the  spirit  of  fatality  or  of  absolute 
solidarity,  to  divest  themselves  of  that  on  entering  upon  modern 
times.  The  trades'  and  labor  unions  and  the  curiae  may  be  cited  as 
memorable  examples. 

There  is,  however,  one  exception  to  what  we  have  said  of  the  lib 
erty  of  withdrawal  possessed  by  members  of  the  unions.  Undeni 
able  facts  establish  that  the  butchers  could  not  quit  their  unions.  In 
1260,  the  great  butchery  of  Paris  belonged  to  twelve  families,  which, 
at  the  end  of  four  hundred  years,  in  1660,  were  reduced  to  three. 
We  easily  comprehend  how  the  extinctions  enriched  the  survivors. 
Now,  toward  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  butchers 
wished  to  retire  from  the  union,  or  at  least  to  rent  their  stalls  to 
others.  Then  a  decree  of  parliament,  of  the  2d  April,  1465,  inter 
vened,  requiring  them  to  occupy  their  stalls  in  person.  A  century 
later,  on  a  new  occasion,  this  decision  was  confirmed  by  another 
decree  of  parliament,  of  the  4th  of  March,  1557. 

We  must  not,  however,  exaggerate  the  importance  of  this  fact, 
true  as  it  is,  in  the  general  history  of  the  trades'  and  labor  unjons. 
It  is  certain  that  it  constituted  an  exception.  Moreover,  we  should 
add  that  this  exception  is  only  relative  to  the  epoch  in  which  it 
manifested  itself;  for,  under  the  first,  and  even  under  the  second 
race,  there  still  existed  some  Roman  unions  which  were  governed 
by  the  principles  of  Roman  law.  We  have  cited  a  capitular  of 
Charlemagne,  of  the  year  800,  directing  that  the  provincial  judges 
should  see  to  it  that  the  bakers  kept  up  their  complement.  The 
principle  of  absolute  obligation,  (solidarity ,)  which  in  the  fifteenth 
century  still  oppressed  the  butchers,  is  then,  as  we  have  said,  strange 
only  for  its  time ;  and  it  only  proves  that  the  Roman  traditions  have 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  319 

penetrated  much  farther  than  is  generally  believed  into  some  spe 
cialties  of  our  history. 

We  find  in  the  modern  unions  an  element  which  was  totally 
wanting  in  the  ancient,  and  which  requires  a  separate  notice,  viz. 
apprentices. 

The  ancient  unions  had  no  apprentices,  for  the  very  simple  reason 
that  the  workmen  they  employed  were  slaves.  Hence  the  complete 
absence  in  the  Roman  laws  of  regulations  on  apprenticeship,  mas 
terpiece,  and  admission  to  mastership. 

The  modern  unions,  at  least  from  the  time  of  the  prev'tal  ordon- 
nance  of  1258,  which  is  their  first  charter  of  organization,  have 
never  employed  any  but  free  workmen.  Besides,  slaves  commenced 
to  become  rare  at  that  epoch. 

Apprentices  were  divided  into  two  classes,  the  sons  of  the  mas 
ters,  and  strangers.  Between  these  two  kinds  of  apprentices  there 
was  this  profound  difference,  that  the  number  of  the  first  was  unlim 
ited,  that  of  the  latter  restricted.  We  add  that  the  sons  of  the 
masters  who  were  not  legitimate,  or  born  in  lawful  marriage,  (nes 
de  loyal  mariage,  as  the  register  of  trades  says,)  wer^  in  all  re 
spects  assimilated  to  strangers. 

A  very  important  part  of  the  internal  laws  of  the  unions  was  that 
which  regulated  the  conditions  of  the  work  of  the  apprentices  ;  and 
that  is  readily  conceived  when  it  is  said  that  apprenticeship  was  the 
school  of  the  masters,  and  that  no  one  reached  the  first  rank  with 
out  having  regularly  passed  through  all  the  degrees  of  the  hierarchy. 
It  appears,  without  being  able  to  find  the  reason  for  the  fact,  that 
the  masterships  were  divided,  in  reference  to  apprentices,  into 
two  categories ;  some  admitting  an  indefinite  number,  and  others  a 
very  limited  number.  For  example,  the  professions  of  silk  draper 
and  fringe  maker,  of  gold  and  silver  leaf  beaters,  of  amber  and 
coral  bead  makers,  admitted  only  a  restricted  number  of  appren 
tices  ;  those  of  gold  and  silver  thread  beaters,  tin  beaters,  hauberk 
makers,  admitted  them  at  will.  In  the  professions  in  which  the 
number  of  apprentices  was  limited,  the  masters  could  ordinarily 
have  but  one,  often  two  —  sometimes,  but  rarely,  three.  The  spin 
ners  in  silk  on  big  spindles  had  three,  the  goldsmiths  but  one,  the 
cutlers  two. 

Generally,  all  apprentices  were  subject  to  two  conditions :  .they 


32O  HISTORY    OF    THE 

A 

engaged  to  serve  their  masters  for  a  fixed  time,  and  paid  him  a  cer 
tain  sum  of  money. 

A  goldsmith's  apprentice  was  required  to  serve  six  years,  a  rope- 
maker's  four,  a  cutler's  six,  a  box  maker's  seven,  and  a  buckle  ma 
ker's  eight.  The  amount  paid  for  apprenticeship  also  varied.  The 
box  maker's  apprentice  paid  twenty  Parisian  sous,  the  bead  maker's 
thirty,  the  silk  draper's  six  Parisian  livres.  Almost  always  the  ap 
prentice  could  substitute  for  the  payment  of  money  an  increased 
length  of  service.  Thus,  a  silk  draper's  apprentice  paid  nothing  if 
he  was  willing  to  serve  eight  instead  of  six  years ;  the  box  maker's, 
by  serving  eight  years  instead  of  seven. 

The  contract  of  apprenticeship  was  so  strict  and  rigorous  for  the 
apprentice,  that  he  not  only  could  not  quit  before  the  expiration  of 
his  time,  but  the  master  could  sell  him  to  another  for  the  remainder 
of  his  term  of  service.  Nevertheless,  this  right  of  selling  an  ap 
prentice  was  fixed  and  limited  to  certain  extreme  cases,  such  as  a 
lingering  sickness  of  the  master,  his  quitting  the  business,  excessive 
poverty,  or  departure  for  beyond  seas.  The  apprentice,  on  his 
part,  could'  buy  his  time ;  but  if  he  did  so  before  the  expiration  of 
his  legal  term  of  service,  he  could  not  receive  the  mastership.  If 
the  master  workman  died,  his  widow  retained  his  right  and  kept  the 
apprentice.  If  the  master  had  no  heirs,  the  apprentice  could  apply 
to  the  guards  of  the  trade  to  which  he  belonged  for  a  new  master. 
The  guards  referred  him  to  the  Prevot  of  Paris,  who  immediately 
granted  his  request. 

When  the  time  of  their  legal  service  was  ended,  the  apprentices 
who  wished  to  become  masters  made  a  masterpiece  before  the  guards 
of  the  trade,  presented  a  petition  to  the  Prevot  of  Paris  or  to  the 
prevot  of  merchants  to  obtain  the  mastership,  and,  on  payment  of 
the  fees,  were  established.  It  often  happened  that  the  apprentices 
did  not  aspire  to  mastership,  which  always  involved  an  establish 
ment,  and  required  a  certain  capital.  Then,  their  service  ended, 
they  became  what  was  called  in  the  thirteenth  century  vallez  or  ser- 
gans.  These  were  free  workmen,  going  from  shop  to  shop,  from 
city  to  city,  and  working  with  masters  for  wages.  Title  II.  of  the 
register  of  trades,  relative  to  goldsmiths,  speaks  of  these  workmen, 
who  "  knew  how  to  gain  a  hundred  sous  a  year,  and  their  food  and 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  32! 

drink."  Generally,  masters  could  take  as  many  sergans  or  vallez 
as  they  pleased. 

Finally,  we  must  consider  the  French  unions  in  themselves ;  that 
is,  in  reference  to  their  administrative  organization. 

We  have  already  said  that  the  number  of  their  members  was  not 
fixed.  This  depended  on  the  public  necessities,  and  increased  or 
diminished  according  to  the  bent  of  manners  and  the  tendency  of 
industry.  At  the  commencement  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the 
money-brokers'  union,  reduced  to  five  or  six  heads  of  families,  was 
so  poor  that  it  declared  that  it  could  not  pay  the  expense  of  the  silk 
robes  they  were  required  to  wear  on  the  entry  of  Mary  of  England, 
second  wife  of  Louis  XII.  ;  while,  sixty  years  later,  the  mercers' 
included  twenty-five  hundred  families,  and,  in  1557,  Henry  II.,  on 
a  general  review  of  the  infantry  of  Pans,  found  under  arms  a  body 
of  three  thousand  mercers,  perfectly  equipped. 

However  large  or  restricted  it  might  be,  every  union,  considered 
in  itself,  had  two  points  of  view,  viz.  administrative  and  religious. 

The  invocation  of  such  and  such  holy  personages,  by  every  union 
of  the  middle  ages,  was  no  novelty.  Among  the  pagans,  the  mer 
chants  specially  invoked  Mercury ;  the  sailors,  Neptune ;  laborers, 
Ceres  and  Triptolemus.  In  the  middle  ages,  the  drapers  invoked 
Our  Lady,  {Notre  Dame  /)  the  grocers,  St.  Nicholas  ;  the  mercers, 
St.  Louis ;  the  furriers,  St.  Sacrament ;  the  hosiers,  St.  Fiacre ;  the 
goldsmiths,  St.  Eloi. 

Every  union,  then,  as  we  have  said,  had  two  aspects,  one  reli 
gious,  the  other  administrative ;  and  two  centres,  a  church  and  a 
bureau.  In  the  church,  the  ceremonies  and  prayers  of  the  union 
were  held  ;  in  the  bureau,  the  common  interests  and  general  affairs 
were  discussed.  To  take  the  six  corps  of  Paris  in  their  order  :  The 
drapers  had  their  brotherhood  (confrerie)  at  the  principal  altar 
of  St.  Pierre  des  Arces,  and  their  community  (communante)  in  the 
rue  des  D$chargeurs,  (street  of  porters,)  in  a  house  called  the  car- 
neaux,  (vent-hole,)  which  belonged  in  1527  to  Jean-le-Bossu,  Arch 
deacon  of  Josas.  The  grocers  had  their  brotherhood  at  Grands- 
Augustins,  the  mercers  at  St.  Sepulchre,  the  furriers  at  Carmes  des 
Billettes,  the  hosiers  at  the  Church  of  St.  Jaques-de-la-Boucherie, 
the  goldsmiths  in  a  chapel  in  the  rue  des  Deux  Portes ;  and  as  to 
their  bureaux,  the  grocers  had  theirs  in  the  cloister  of  St.  Oppor- 


322  HISTORY    OF    THE 

% 

tune,  the  mercers  in  the  rue  Quincampoix,  the  hosiers  in  the  clois 
ter  of  St.  Jaques,  and  the  goldsmiths  in  the  rue  des  Deux  Fortes. 

The  French,  like  the  Roman  unions,  had  a  general  administration. 
To  understand  its  mechanism,  it  is  necessary  to  make  first  a  short 
digression. 

Between  the  thirteenth  and  sixteenth  century,  a  kind  of  central 
izing  movement  occurred  in  the  unions,  which  consisted  in  grouping 
a  certain  number  of  them,  under  the  name  of  metiers,  (trades,) 
around  a  master-union,  under  the  name  of  corps.  In  the  time  of 
St.  Louis  there  were  only  the  metiers ;  in  the  time  of  Louis  XII. 
there  were  the  corps  and  the  metiers. 

The  primitive  administration  of  the  metiers  was  much  less  fixed 
and  less  regular  than  that  of  the  corps  was  subsequently.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  each  of  the  metiers  had  a  treasury,  which  in  the  reg 
ister  bore  the  name  of  "  bolte  de  la  conflairie"  It  results,  also,  from 
a  donation  of  twenty-four  houses  by  Philip  Augustus,  in  the  com 
mencement  of  his  reign,  to  the  drapers,  and  another  of  eighteen 
houses  to  the  furriers,  that  these  two  unions,  and  probably  all  the 
others,  had  certain  material  interests  in  common.  The  administra 
tors  of  the  general  interests  of  each  union  differed  in  their  number, 
in  the  mode  of  election,  and  in  the  length  of  their  terms  of  office. 

These  administrators  bore  the  name  of  prud ^homines  or  gardes. 
Most  of  the  trades  had  two ;  for  example,  the  beer  brewers,  the  tin 
potters,  the  rope  makers,  the  iron  cutlers,  the  locksmiths,  the  bone- 
bead  makers,  and  the  silk  spinners.  Others  had  three,  as  the  gold 
smiths  and  the  knife  cutlers ;  some  four,  as  the  fullers ;  some  six, 
as  the  farriers ;  a  small  number  eight,  as  the  thread  and  silk  fringe 
makers ;  finally,  we  find  some  which  had  twelve,  as  the  talmeliers 
(bakers)  and  fruit  hucksters. 

It  is  certain  that,  primitively  —  that  is  to  say,  when  the  Roman 
traditions  had  not  yet  entirely  disappeared,  and  at  the  epoch  when 
royalty  was  not  completely  mixed  up  with  the  unions,  the  prud'- 
hommes  were  elected  by  the  corps.  There  were  even  in  the  register 
some  trades  that  elected  their  guards,  as  the  goldsmiths;  but  in 
most  of  the  trades  the  prud'hommes  were,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  nominated  by  the  Prevot  of  Paris;  that  is  to 
say,  by  the  king.  For  all  the  unions  whose  prud'hommes  were 
nominated  by  the  Prevot  of  Paris,  the  duration  of  their  functions 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  323 

was  unlimited  ;  for  the  prevot  maintained  or  changed  them  at  will. 
But  the  fullers  were  an  exception  to  this.  Their  prud'hommes,  by 
special  law,  were  changed  every  six  months.  In  the  unions  in 
which  the  prud'hommes  were  elective,  the  usual  term  of  their  func 
tions  was  for  a  year.  The  goldsmiths'  union  had  this  peculiarity, 
that  the  guards  were  not  re-eligible  until  after  the  expiration  of 
three  years. 

There  remains  one  point  to  exhaust  all  that  is  necessary  to  be 
said  about  the  metiers  —  that  is,  their  jurisdiction.  We  know  that 
in  the  middle  ages,  an  epoch  full  of  small  associations,  forming  so 
many  small  and  almost  independent  states,  the  jurisdictions  were 
numerous.  Thus,  the  scholar  appealed  to  the  university ;  the  priest 
to  the  bishop ;  the  burgher  to  the  hotel  de  ville  ;  the  gentleman  to 
the  king.  The  trades,  also,  had  a  jurisdiction.  This  jurisdiction 
was  not  complete ;  that  is  to  say,  the  trades  had  no  tribunal  before 
which  every  member  of  the  union  had  the  right  of  demanding  a 
trial  for  any  offence,  as  every  scholar  had  the  right  of  claiming 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  university.  That  could  not  be,  because 
every  member  of  an  union  of  Paris  was  at  the  same  time  a  burgher, 
and  hence  this  latter  character  subjected  him  to  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  hotel  de  ville.  The  jurisdiction  of  the  trades  was  partial,  and 
only  embraced  offences  committed  against  the  statutes  of  each  union. 

Well !  this  jurisdiction  of  the  trades  was  exercised  ejther  by  the 
prevot  of  Paris  or  by  the  grand  officers  of  the  crown.  We  know 
that  the  Roman  unions  all  depended  on  the  officers  of  the  palace. 
It  was  the  same  with  the  unions  of  the  middle  ages,  which  royalty 
had  subjected  to  its  grand  officers.  Thus,  the  grand  pantler  had 
under  him  the  bakers ;  the  grand  cook,  the  fishermen ;  the  grand 
chamberlain,  the  mercers,  drapers,  furriers,  and  frippers  ;  the  grand 
butler,  the  wine  merchants.  The  jurisdiction  exercised  by  these 
grand  officers  carried  with  it  an  annual  tax  on  the  part  of  the  trades, 
besides  fines  and  confiscations.  For  this  reason,  the  supreme  mas 
tership  of  the  trades  was,  in  fact,  an  endowment  worthy  of  being 
conferred  by  feudal  title. 

Such  was  the  situation  of  the  trades  toward  the  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  We  can  follow  the  different  variations  which 
they  subsequently  underwent,  first,  in  the  forty  or  forty-five  ordon- 
nances  relative  to  the  unions,  issued  by  the  Prevots  of  Paris  down 


324  HISTORY    OF    THE 

% 

to  the  commencement  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and,  next,  in  the 
royal  ordonnances  down  to  the  sixteenth,  the  epoch  when  they 
acquired  a  fixed  organization. 

Since  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  as  we  have  said,  the  corps 
were  already  formed.  Under  Louis  XII. ,  on  the  entrance  of  Mary 
of  England,  there  were  six,  called  the  six  corps  of  Paris,  and  they 
ranked  in  this  order :  the  drapers,  the  grocers,  the  mercers,  the 
leather  dealers,  the  hosiers,  and  the  goldsmiths.  Henry  III.  erected 
the  wine  merchants  into  a  seventh  corps,  and  their  letters-patent 
were  confirmed  by  Henry  IV.,  Louis  XIII.,  and  Louis  XIV.  Never 
theless,  the  other  corps  were  unwilling  to  receive  them  into  their 
assemblies.  Moreover,  it  was  only  after  an  infinite  succession  of 
troubles,  disputes,  wranglings,  revolts,  and  suits  that  the  rank  of  the 
corps  was  definitely  settled  as  we  have  stated. 

The  six  corps  formed,  as  it  were,  the  aristocracy  of  the  trades,  in 
this  sense,  that  they  expressed  their  interests  and  were  their  head. 
Their  emblem  was  a  Hercules,  seated,  trying  to  break  a  fasces  of 
six  rods,  with  this  device  :  Vincit  concordia  fratrum.  The  six  corps 
represented  industry  in  great  ceremonies,  and  in  truth  summed  up 
all  its  political  value. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  six  corps 
petitioned  the  city  for  special  arms.  Master  Christopher  Sanguin, 
prevot  of  merchants,  granted  their  request,  and  accorded  to  them 
arms,  as  follows : 

The  drapers  bore  :  azure,  a  ship  of  silver,  with  the  banner  of 
France,  an  open  eye  en  chef,  with  this  legend  :  Ut  ccztera  dirigat. 
In  fact,  the  drapers  were  the  first  corps.  Others  blazoned  their 
escutcheon  thus :  silver,  a  vessel  of  gold,  sails  and  flag  azure,  sail 
ing  on  a  sea  of  sinople.  These  were,  as  we  see,  the  arms  of  in 
quiry.  We  have  found  no  author  who  gives  a  reason  for  it. 

The  grocers  bore  :  azure  and  gold  couped.  On  the  azure  a  silver 
hand  holding  golden  scales.  On  the  gold  two  ships  floating  gules, 
(red,)  with  the  banner  of  France;  two  red  stars  en  chef;  with  this 
device  :  Lances  et  ponder  a  servant.  In  fact,  the  grocers  had  charge 
of  the  standard  of  weights  at  Paris. 

The  arms  of  the  mercers  were  :  sinople,  three  silver  ships,  with  the 
banner  of  France,  placed  two  and  one,  en  chef  a  golden  sun  with 
eight  rays,  between  two  ships.  Their  device  was,  Toto  orbe  sequimur. 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  32$ 

The  leather  dealers,  who  claimed  to  have  received  their  arms  from 
a  Duke  of  Bourbon,  Count  of  Clermont,  grand  chamberlain  of 
France  in  1368,  bore  :  azure,  a  silver  paschal  lamb,  holding  a  red 
banner ;  on  it  a  golden  cross.  The  shield  was  supported  by  two 
ermines,  and  had  a  ducal  crown  for  its  crest. 

The  hosiers,  who  only  became  a  corps  under  Louis  XII.,  by  the 
withdrawal  of  the  money-changers,  bore :  azure,  five  silver  ships 
with  the  banner  of  France ;  en  chef,  a  golden  star. 

The  goldsmiths,  confirmed  in  their  privileges  and  statutes  by 
Philip  IV.,  received  from  him  in  1330  their  arms.  They  were  : 
gules,  (red,)  a  golden  cross  dentelled,  cantoned  on  the  first  and 
fourth  quarters  with  a  golden  cup ;  on  the  second  and  third,  a 
golden  crown  ;  en  chef,  France.  Their  device  was :  In  sacra  in- 
que  coronas. 

It  is  to  be  remarked  that  four  of  the  six  corps,  viz.  the  drapers, 
grocers,  mercers,  and  hosiers,  had  their  arms  by  municipal  grant, 
which  explains  why  the  ship  (nef)  of  the  coat  of  arms  of  the  hotel 
de  ville  of  Paris  appears  so  abundantly  on  their  escutcheons. 

Such,  with  perhaps  some  other  details  of  small  importance,  was 
the  organization  of  the  trades'  unions  of  the  middle  ages.  If  the 
reader  has  observed  with  some  care  the  general  spirit  of  their  stat 
utes,  he  will  have  seen  that  they  were  at  once  a  guaranty  for  society, 
for  industry,  and  for  the  public. 

The  unions  were  a  guaranty  for  society,  first,  because  they  regu 
lated  the  condition  of  the  working  classes,  maintained  order  and 
emulation  among  them,  and  were,  in  a  measure,  the  guards  of  the  most 
restless  and  turbulent  parts  of  the  population;  next,  because  corpo 
rations  of  every  kind  are  always  conservative  in  their  nature,  and 
the  countries  where  they  exist  can  always  venture  more  in  liberal 
enterprises,  as  they  are  strongly  restrained  by  the  chains  of  tradi 
tions. 

The  unions  were  also  a  guaranty  for  industry,  because  they  cre 
ated  a  hierarchy  among  the  laborers,  establishing  among  them  de 
grees,  which  were  reached  by  time,  labor,  and  intelligence;  and 
because  they  inexorably  closed  the  door  of  the  professions  to  all 
those  who  did  not  bring  in  their  hands  the  golden  branch  of  talent 
and  good  conduct. 

The  unions  were,  finally,  a  guaranty  for  the  public;  for  the  strict- 


326  HISTORY    OF    THE 

4) 

ness  of  those  who  guarded  their  statutes  admitted  to  mastership  only 
those  who  were  long  practised  in  a  profession,  and  could  prove,  by 
the  perfection  of  their  masterpieces,  that  they  accepted  all  its  obli 
gations,  and  were  proficients  in  its  exercise. 

But  how  did  it  happen  that,  with  all  these  incontestable  ad  vantages, 
the  unions  ended  by  becoming  the  objects  of  general  animadversion, 
and  the  constituent  assembly  abolished  them  with  as  much  enthusi 
asm  as  they  did  titles  and  feudal  rights?  How  happened  it  that  the 
masterships,  that  knighthood  of  the  people,  found  no  mercy  at  the 
hands  of  the  democratic  destructives  of  the  end  of  the  last  century  ? 
And  if  burgher  institutions  fell  pell-mell  under  their  hands,  along 
with  royal  institutions,  was  it  blindness,  contempt,  or  stupidity? 

No  !  It  must  be  admitted  that  it  was  not  solely  the  fault  of  the 
constituent  assembly  that  the  unions  fell.  It  was  also  the  fault  of 
the  unions  themselves. 

From  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  in  1358,  Charles  of 
Valois,  Duke  of  Normandy,  Dauphin  of  France,  and  regent  of  the 
kingdom  during  the  captivity  of  King  John,  expressed  in  these 
terms,  in  an  ordonnance  relative  to  tailors,  the  coming  condemna 
tion  of  the  unions.  Speaking  of  the  regulations  concerning  the 
unions,  he  said:  "  Generally  they  are  made  more  in  favor  and  for 
the  profit  of  individuals  of  each  trade  than  for  the  common  good." 
Behold  the  true  germ,  which,  in  its  development,  has  killed  the 
unions  —  egotism. 

In  fact  —  and  this  was,  however,  less  a  crime  of  intention  than  a 
misfortune  of  the  times  —  when  the  unions  were  established,  it  was 
without  any  general  plan,  and  without  any  social  preoccupation. 
Each  of  them  only  thought  of  itself,  and  thought  only  of  aggran 
dizing  itself,  no  matter  at  whose  or  what  cost.  Instead,  then,  of 
being  co-ordinates,  they  were  rather  in  a  state  of  strife.  This  is 
why  they  perished. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  clashing  of  the 
opposite  interests  of  the  several  unions  rendefed  almost  all  progress 
in  industry  impossible,  because  each  union  was  absolute  master  in 
the  kind  of  work  which  the  statutes  guaranteed  to  them  respectively. 
For  example,  if  four  or  five  trades  had  to  co-operate  in  any  product, 
each  one  of  them  could  stop  all  improvement  by  refusing,  through 
ignorance  or  interest,  to  do  otherwise  than  their  forefathers  had 


WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES.  327 

done.  It  is,  then,  certain  that  the  unions  which  founded  profes 
sional  industry  in  France,  ended  by  becoming  obstacles  to  its  devel 
opment  ;  but  as  the  evil  came  from  want  of  unity  and  general  agree 
ment  in  their  statutes,  the  remedy  was  to  be  found  in  their  revision, 
and  not  in  their  destruction.  The  destructives  of  the  constituent 
assembly  therefore  overstepped  the  mark ;  for,  instead  of  removing 
the  disease,  they  killed  the  patient. 


CHAPTER    XX. 

SUMMARY. 

HERE  ends  the  task  we  have  imposed  on  ourselves  in  this 
book  ;  and  that  its  general  course  may  remain  clearly  traced 
on  the  mind  of  the  reader,  we  sum  up  its  principal  ideas. 

We  commenced  by  stating  the  fact,  subsequently  proved  in  the 
course  of  the  work,  that  the  laboring  and  burgher  classes,  in  all 
countries  where  they  exist,  came  from  a  previous  emancipation  of 
slaves. 

This  fact  once  established,  we  were  led  to  prove  that  primitively 
slavery  existed  among  all  the  peoples  of  the  world,  without  excep 
tion.  Then  we  have  inquired  whence  came  this  slavery  universally 
existing  in  the  first  ages  of  every  nation ;  and  we  have  concluded, 
from  the  study  and  comparison  of  a  great  mass  of  facts,  that  slavery 
was  born  in  the  primitive  family  and,  consequently,  it  was  not 
originally  established  by  the  hand  of  man. 

These  ideas  stated  and  discussed,  we  have  followed  the  slave  races 
to  their  emerging  from  slavery  by  emancipation,  and  have  seen  them 
divide  into  two  great  columns  —  one  formed  of  the  industrial  freed- 
men,  who  gathered  together  in  the  cities ;  the  other  formed  of  the 
agricultural  freedmen,  who  were  scattered  through  the  country. 
The  first  form  the  commune  and  the  burghers ;  the  second,  feudal 
ism  and  the  peasants. 

Arrived  at  this  point,  we  have  treated  separately  the  history  of 
these  two  great  divisions  of  the  freed  races. 


328  THE    WORKING    AND    BURGHER    CLASSES. 

The  commune  appeared  to  us  to  be  the 'administrative  association 
of  the  freedmen  ;  the  trades'  union  their  industrial  association.  As 
there  are  freedmen  among  all  the  peoples  of  the  world,  we  have 
concluded  that  there  were  also,  communes  and  trades'  unions  among 
all  the  nations  of  the  universe. 

Feudalism  seems  to  us  to  be  the  government  which  regulates  the 
relations  of  the  agricultural  freedmen  to  their  masters;  and,  as  there 
have  been  agricultural  freedmen  in  all  countries,  we  have  concluded 
that  feudalism  was  an  element  of  ancient  as  of  modern  history. 

Below  the  burghers  and  the  peasants,  outside  of  the  commune 
and  feudalism,  we  have  found  those  who  could  not  support  them 
selves,  who  form  the  class  of  beggars,  and  constitute  pauperism. 

Alongside  of  the  burghers  and  the  peasants,  we  have  found  those 
who  were  unwilling  to  live  their  life,  and  who,  in  the  three  great 
categories  of  literary  slaves,  courtesans,  and  bandits,  gained  by  in 
tellect,  beauty,  or  force,  what  birth  had  refused  to  them. 

Such,  excepting  some  transpositions  of  chapters  required  by  the 
logic  of  our  ideas,  is  the  book  which  we  present  to  the  public.  It 
is  a  faithful  picture  of  the  historic  fortune  of  the  slave  races,  in 
which  we  see  what  they  were  before  becoming,  and  to  become,  what 
they  are. 

We  are  stopped  on  the  threshold  of  the  present  :  there,  where 
the  historian  meets  the  publicist ;  the  affirmation  theory ;  facts  the 
idea. 


POSTSCRIPT. 


WE  have  already  alluded  briefly  (see  p.  xlviii.)  to  the  repug 
nance  of  the  non-slaveholding  whites  of  the  South  to  the 
proposition  for  negro  enlistments  in  the  Confederate  armies ;  a 
repugnance  which  even  the  great  name  and  magic  influence  of 
Robert  E.  Lee  could  not  overcome.  This  proposition  was  advo 
cated  by  General  Lee  at  a  late  period  of  the  civil  war — perhaps  too 
late  to  have  changed  the  results.  Reluctant  as  we  are  to  detain  our 
readers,  we  would  feel  that  our  part  of  this  work  was  incomplete  if 
we  failed  to  notice  the  fact,  that  long  before  General  Lee  came  to 
that  conclusion,  there  was  one  man  whose  forecast  anticipated  that 
some  such  measure  would  be  indispensable  to  the  success  of  the 
Confederate  cause.  That  man  was  Colonel  John  T.  Pickett,  who 
was  selected,  on  account  of  his  previous  Mexican  experience,  as 
the  first  diplomatic  agent  of  the  Confederate  States  in  Mexico. 
Early  in  the  war  —  under  date  of  Vera  Cruz,  February  22,  1862  — 
he  submitted,  for  the  consideration  of  the  Confederate  Government, 
the  following 

"MEMORANDUM. 

"Is  there  no  mode  by  which  we  may  be  able  to  neutralize  the 
hostility  existing  throughout  the  world  against  our  institution  of  do 
mestic  servitude  ?  It  is  in  vain  to  attempt  to  correct  the  gross  mis 
apprehensions  prevailing  with  regard  to  it.  The  word  ( slavery  '  is 
sufficient  to  condemn  it  among  the  peoples.  Can  we  not  invent  a 
better  and  more  appropriate  name  for  it  ?  It  is  not  '  slavery '  as 
understood  among  men ;  but  we  bear  the  odium  as  though  it  were. 
The  enactment  of  laws  which  would  prohibit  the  separation  of 
mothers  and  children,  (though  what  white  family  is  not  so  sepa 
rated?)  the  granting  to  the  negroes  certain  civil  rights,  (so  to  speak,) 

22  $29 


X 

33°  POSTSCRIPT. 

• 

—  such  as  protection  from  cruel  and  arbitrary  punishment,  right  to 
change  their  masters  if  maltreated,  privilege  to  purchase  their  free 
dom,  etc.,  etc., —  might  go  far  toward  the  end  so  much  to  be  de 
sired.  Practically,  these  things  do  exist  to  a  certain  extent.  The 
force  of  public  opinion  is  protection  to  the  negro,  not  to  speak  of 
the  interest  and  even  affection  of  the  master.  But  the  world  at  large 
knows  not  these  things,  and'  cannot  or  will  not  be  convinced  ; 
whereas,  an  expression  of  the  supreme  legislative  will  would  appeal 
to  the  governments  and  to  the  enlightenment  of  the  age.  I  resided 
for  years  in  the  British  West  Indies,  made  many  visits  to  Hayti  and 
to  the  Dominican  Republic,  have  seen  only  too  much  of  the  fruits 
of  indiscriminate  equality  among  the  mongrels  and  hybrids  of  Span 
ish  America,  and  therefore  no  one  can  entertain  sounder  views  on 
the  great  domestic  question  than  I  do.  In  short,  emancipation  with 
out  deportation  would  be  national  suicide ;  with  it,  a  chimera. ' ' 

These  suggestions  were  not  acted  on  for  two  reasons :  first,  be 
cause  the  question  was  a  local  one,  belonging  exclusively  to  the 
States,  and  the  Confederate  authorities  had  no  constitutional  power 
to  touch  it  in  any  way ;  secondly,  because  their  whole  time,  atten 
tion,  thoughts,  and  energies  were  absorbed  in  the  question  of  de 
fence  —  of  repelling  the  armed  invasion  of  their  territory. 

Colonel  Pickett's  idea  was,  that  the  inauguration  of  a  scheme  of 
gradual  emancipation  would  emasculate  the  Abolition  party  of  the 
North,  satisfy  Europe,  and  secure  intervention,  peace,  and  inde 
pendence  ;  and  that  although  the  Constitution  of  the  Confederate 
States  gave  to  the  Confederate  Government  no  right  to  interfere  with 
the  local  institutions  of  the  States,  yet  the  Confederate  Congress 
might,  by  joint  resolution,  recommend  some  such  action  to  the  State 
Legislatures,  and  justify  their  recommendation  by  the  plea  of  "  mili 
tary  necessity"  which  in  time  of  war  covers,  like  charity  at  all 
times,  a  multitude  of  sins. 

Colonel  Pickett  soon  found  that  he  could  accomplish  nothing  by 
remaining  in  Mexico,  and,  without  waiting  for  instructions  from  his 
Government,  returned  to  take  part  in  the  active  service  of  the  field, 
as  chief  of  staff  to  General  Breckinridge.  As  Mr.  Colwell,  under 
the  excitements  of  the  war,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  negro 
slavery  should  be  sacrificed  to  save  the  Union,  so  Colonel  Pickett, 


POSTSCRIPT.  331 

from  his  standpoint,  under  the  influence  of  his  associations  with  the 
diplomatic  representatives  of  the  monarchies  and  empires  of  Europe, 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  institution  should  be  sacrificed  to 
secure  European  intervention,  peace,  and  independence. 

Subsequently,  he  ran  as  a  candidate  for  the  Confederate  Congress, 
against  General  Humphrey  Marshall,  that  he  might  officially  and 
more  effectually  ventilate  his  views  in  favor  of  negro  enlistments 
and  gradual  emancipation.  He  was  defeated,  not,  as  he  supposes, 
by  any  intrigues  of  General  Marshall,  but  because  it  got  bruited 
about  among  the  non-slaveholding  whites  that  he  was  in  favor  of 
negro  enlistments  and  gradual  emancipation. 

Still  later,  he  learned  that  the  Confederate  Government  contem 
plated  sending  another  minister  to  Mexico,  and,  for  the  benefit  of 
his  successor  in  that  mission,  submitted  the  suggestions  of  his  expe 
rience,  as  follows : 

"  The  cause  of  Mexican  hate  toward  us,  as  individuals  and  as 
a  nation,  is  patent.  ...  It  may  be  said  to  arise,  firstly,  from  the 
great  aversion  of  the  Mexicans  to  negro  slavery ;  and,  secondly, 
from  jealousy  of  race,  the  natural  dread  a  weaker  people  have  for 
a  stronger  neighbor,  and  from  the  artfully  contrived  teachings  of 
the  United  States  Government  as  to  past  and  future  aggressions  upon 
Mexican  territory. 

"As  to  the  first  proposition.  It  is  impossible  to  unteach  the  Mexi 
can  mind  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  We  daily  feel  what  an  aboli 
tion  propaganda  has  done  among  a  more  enlightened  people.  But 
it  ought  to  be  in  our  power  to  persuade  Mexican  statesmen  (for  it 
will  be  with  Mexicans  that  our  diplomatist  will  have  to  deal,  even 
under  the  government  of  Maximilian)  that,  although  slavery  has  both 
its  moral  and  political  blessings,  and  as  practised  in  the  Confederate 
States,  it  is  but  a  mode  of  hiring  servants  for  life,  while  in  other  coun 
tries  they  are  employed  by  the  day,  month,  or  year,  yet  we  have  never 
designed  to  force  the  institution  upon  our  neighbor.  It  can  be  shown, 
too,  that  free  colored  people  are  regarded  with  more  consideration 
and  entitled  to  more  substantial  privileges  among  us,  though  not 
admitted  to  social  and  political  equality,  than  in  the  United  States. 
Our  history  will  furnish  instances.  General  Jackson  treated  the  free 


332  POSTSCRIPT. 

• 

colored  inhabitants  of  New  Orleans  as  'citizens,'  in  a  certain  sense. 
We  know  that  a  large  class  in  Mobile,  of  the  present  day,  termed 
*  Creoles,'  are  colored  people,  (whence  the  popular  error  as  to  the 
true  signification  of  that  word,)  of  French  and  Spanish  admixture. 
It  is  also  a  fact  that  many  adopted  citizens  of  Texas  have  African 
blood  in  their  veins.  Neither  did  our  Southerners  in  California  ob 
ject  to  the  eminent  Don  Pio  Pico  because  of  his  negro  blood.  But 
California,  an  Abolition  State,  refuses  citizenship  to  the  Chinese,  (to 
which  refusal  the  writer  does  not  object,  individually,)  while,  to  my 
knowledge,  some  of  the  best  families  in  Mexico  have  Chinese  blood 
in  their  veins  —  the  natural  consequence  of  the  annual  galleon  be 
tween  Acapulco  and  Manilla.  I  was  on  very  friendly  terms  with 
the  head  of  one  of  these  families,  Don  Luis  Jauregui.  But  the  most 
striking  contrast  of  this  whole  picture  would  be  the  treatment  which 
the  negroes  received  from  a  New  York  mob  not  many  months  ago. 

"  It  would  be  an  ungracious  office,  but  we  might  remind  the  Mex 
icans  that  they  enslave  their  own  race.  Indeed,  white  peons  are 
very  numerous,  and  peonage  is  the  most  atrocious  system  ever  con 
ceived  of.  It  is  slavery  for  debt,  without  provision  for  infancy,  sick 
ness,  or  old  age.  It  is  transmitted  from  father  to  son,  while  with  us 
the  child  takes  the  condition  of  the  mother  only.  But  hear  Com 
modore  Perry  on  the  subject  of  Mexican  peonage.  '  God  pity  these 
poor  creatures  ! '  says  the  commodore  in  his  journal,  in  reference  to 
the  laboring  classes  of  the  Lew  Chew  Islands.  1 1  have  seen  much 
of  the  world,  have  observed  savage  life  in  many  of  its  conditions, ' 
but  never,  unless  I  may  except  the  miserable  peons  of  Mexico,  have 
I  looked  upon  such  an  amount  of  apparent  wretchedness  as  these 
squalid  slaves  would  seem  to  suffer.' 

"  It  is  a  system  which  would  have  disgraced  the  laws  of  Draco, 
which  are  said  to  have  been  written  in  blood.  If  we  were  as  hypo 
critical  and  meddlesome  as  our  Northern  brethren,  and  were  in  a 
condition  to  do  so,  we  might  cajole  the  world  by  a  crusade  against 
this  enslavement  of  white  men.  We  might  create  a  great  sensation, 
too,  by  broaching  a  scheme  for  the  amalgamation  of  the  white  and 
red  races  of  the  continent.  Why  should  it  not  be  as  great  an  honor 
to  claim  the  blood  of  Montezuma  as  that  of  Powhatan  ?  At  least,  let 
us  impress  Mexicans  with  the  fact  that  we  have  no  prejudice  against 
their  native  race  —  that  Indians  are  citizens  with  us,  and  sit  in  our 


POSTSCRIPT.  333 

national  legislature.  It  would  be  well,  also,  to  explain  to  them  that 
it  is  in  the  abolition  programme  to  colonize  Mexico  with  North 
American  negroes  of  the  Protestant  (i.  e.  '  heretic ')  faith,  and  speak 
ing  the  English  language. 

"As  a  proof  that  Mexico  is  thoroughly  abolitionized,  I  will  men 
tion  that,  during  my  long  residence  as  United  States  Consul  at  Vera 
Cruz,  I  never  succeeded  in  reclaiming,  by  intervention  of  local 
authority,  a  single  negro  deserter  from  the  vessels  of  my  nation ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  I  scarcely  ever  failed  to  have  the  white 
sailors  returned  promptly.  I  think  the  accomplished  gentleman  * 
mentioned  in  connection  with  the  secretaryship  of  the  new  mission 
has  some  official  knowledge  of  this  fact.  I  will  dismiss  this  part  of 
my  theme  by  suggesting  that  the  envoy  procure  some  of  our  stand 
ard  Southern  works  on  the  slavery  question.  They  may  be  useful 
to  him,  and  cannot,  probably,  be  procured  in  Mexico.  He  can 
easily  obtain  the  published  Northern  view  of  the  subject  in  that 
capital,  and  should  do  so.  Fas  est  ab  hoste  doceri. ' ' 

Colonel  Pickett  is  an  accomplished  scholar,  a  sound  thinker,  a 
quick  and  acute  observer.  Yet  the  standpoint  from  which  his  ob 
servations  were  taken  did  not  command  a  view  of  the  whole  field. 
He  looked  at  the  subject  only  as  a  diplomatist,  intent  on  one  object, 
viz.  peace  and  independence  through  the  instrumentality  of  an 
European  intervention.  Consequently,  like  M.  Guizot,  (see  ante, 
p.  134,)  with  many  clear  and  correct  views,  he  stopped  halfway  on 
his  road  to  a  great  discovery.  He  saw  that  the  world  is  governed 
by  sensations;  but  he  did  not  prosecute  his  inquiries  far  enough  to 
discover  who  created  these  sensations,  and  for  what  purposes.  If  he 
had  done  so,  he  would  have  seen  that  self-interest  was  at  the  bot 
tom;  that  "man  advances  in  the  execution  of  a  plan  which  he  has 
not  conceived,  of  which  he  is  not  even  aware,  and  which  he  compre 
hends  very  imperfectly,"  while  "  its  designs  are  centred  in  a  single 
or  in  few  minds." 

He  saw  that  the  diplomatic  representatives  of  European  despot 
isms  were  bitterly  and  unchangeably  opposed  to  the  peculiar  institu 
tion  of  negro  slavery  in  the  Southern  States,  while  they  had  no  word 

*  Walker  Fearn,  Esq.,  Secretary  of  Legation  to  Mexico  with  the  Hon.  John 
Forsyth,  Minister  Plenipotentiary. 


*- 

334  POSTSCRIPT. 

of  sympathy  for  the  far  more  wretched  condition  of  the  peons  of 
Mexico,  nor  for  the  slaves  of  the  Lew  Chew  Islands  and  of  the 
British  East  Indies. 

He  did  not  stop,  or  rather  he  did  not  go  on,  to  inquire  why  this 
was  so.  If  he  had,  he  would  have  discovered  that  negro  servitude, 
as  it  existed  in  the  Southern  States,  being  a  peculiar  institution,  pro 
duced  peculiar  political  and  politico-economical  results. 

i st.  Its  tendency  was  to  strengthen  the  democratic  principle  of 
political  and  social  equality  among  the  rich  and  poor  whites. 

2d.  It  elevated  the  whites,  however  poor  they  might  be,  above 
the  degradation  of  selling  their  votes. 

3d.  It  married  capital  to  labor,  by  making  it  the  interest  of  cap 
ital  to  keep  up  wages,  which  went  into  its  pocket,  and  to  keep  down 
the  cost  of  living,  which  came  out  of  its  pocket. 

4th.  The  result  of  these  peculiar  influences  was  to  give  stability to 
free  institutions,  causing  the  Southern  States  to  be  "constantly  in 
clined  most  strongly  to  the  side  of  liberty;  the  first  to  see  and  the  first 
to  resist  the  encroachments  of  power ;  and,  by  the  marriage  of  capital 
to  labor,  it  enlisted  capital  on  the  side  of  labor  against  that  legisla 
tive  policy  which  seeks  to  cheapen  labor,  to  increase  taxes,  and  to 
squander  the  taxes  paid  by  labor  for  the  profit  of  capital."  (See  Cal- 
houn's  speech,  ante,  p.  xxxii.) 

If  Colonel  Pickett  had  pushed  his  observations  beyond  the  diplo 
matic  into  the  politico-economical  field  of  inquiry,  he  would  have 
discovered  that,  on  the  part  of  the  advocates  of  centralism  and  of 
capital,  emancipation  was  the  chief  object  of  the  war ;  because, 

i  st.  Emancipation  would  divorce  Southern  capital  from  labor; 

2d.  It  would  destroy  the  chief  support  of  the  democratic  princi 
ple  of  equality  among  the  whites,  and  place  the  Government  on  the 
inclined  plane  to  monarchy ; 

3d.  It  would  substitute  for  the  incorruptible  votes  of  the  poor 
whites  of  the  South  the  cheaply  purchasable  votes  of  negro  freedmen, 
to  neutralize  the  votes  of  the  working  and  burgher  classes  of  the 
North  and  West. 

When  Colonel  Pickett  said  that  "emancipation  without  deporta 
tion  would  be  national  suicide ;  with  it,  a  chimera, ' '  he  spoke  of  im 
mediate  emancipation  in  mass.  His  observations  and  experience  in 
Mexico  and  the  West  Indies  doubtless  satisfied  him,  as  ours  did  us, 


POSTSCRIPT.  335 

that  deportation  was  surrounded  with  practical  difficulties  which  made 
the  scheme  chimerical.  Those  difficulties  were,  first,  the  enormous 
expense  of  moving  4,000,000  of  people,  and  of  taking  care  of  them 
in  transitu,  and  until  located  in  new  homes ;  second,  their  inability 
to  take  care  of  themselves  after  they  were  located,  as  shown  by  the 
fate  of  the  American  negro  colony  on  the  island  of  Santo  Domingo ; 
third,  the  inhumanity  of  the  "frightful  misery"  which  must  inev 
itably  result  from  turning  them  off  to  take  care  of  themselves ;  and, 
finally,  because  their  labor  was  indispensable  where  they  were,  and 
could  not  be  supplied  except  by  a  slow  and  gradual  system,  running 
through  a  long  course  of  years. 

This  idea  of  gradual  emancipation  with  deportation  originated 
with  Mr.  Jefferson,  fifty  years  ago  —  long  before  the  vvty  peculiar 
politico-economical  results  of  the  peculiar  institution  were  analyzed 
by  the  master  mind  of  Calhoun.  Up  to  the  close  of  the  war,  de 
portation  of  the  negroes  was  a  favorite  idea  with  most  of  the  prom 
inent  leaders  of  the  monarchical  cheap-labor  party. 

On  the  8th  of  December,  1859,  Senator  Trumbull  said  : 

"When  we  say  that  all  men  are  created  equal,  we  do  not  mean 
that  every  man  in  organized  society  has  the  same  rights.  We  do 
not  tolerate  that  in  Illinois.  I  know  that  there  is  a  distinction  be 
tween  these  two  races,  because  the  Almighty  himself  has  marked  it 
upon  their  very  faces ;  and,  in  my  judgment,  man  cannot,  by  legis 
lation  or  otherwise,  produce  a  perfect  equality  between  these  races, 
so  that  they  will  live  happily  together.  ...  I  trust  that  an  idea 
foreshadowed  by  Mr.  Jefferson  will  hereafter  become,  although  it  is 
not  now,  part  of  the  creed  of  the  Republican  party.  I  mean  the 
idea  of  the  deportation  of  the  free  negro  population  from  this  country. 
...  It  seems  irtipracticable  to  transport  this  great  population  to 
Africa.  Let  us  obtain  a  country  nearer  home ;  and  I  know  I  may 
say  for  the  people  whom  I  represent,  we  will  contribute  liberally  of 
our  means  to  relieve  the  country  of  the  free  negro  population.  I 
hope  it  may  become  the  policy  of  the  Republican  party  ...  to 
deliver  the  country  from  the  only  element  which  ever  seriously 
threatened  its  peace,  and  furnish  the  means  of  relieving  it  from  the 
evils  of  a  large  free  negro  population.  By  such  a  course  we  may 
lay  the  foundation  for  continued  and  permanent  prosperity." 


336  POSTSCRIPT. 

• 
On  the  1 3th  of  April,  1860,  Senator  John  Sherman,  in  a  speech 

at  the  Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  favored  the  idea  of  the  "gradual 
colonization  of  the  negro  population  of  the  United  States  in  the 
Central  American  States,"  where  they  might  be  "free  from  the 
domination  of  the  white  race. ' ' 

On  the  yth  of  March,  1860,  Senator  Wade,  of  Ohio,  said,  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States : 

"This  great  Government  owes  it  to  various  pressing  considera 
tions  to  provide  a  means  whereby  the  free  negroes  may  emigrate  to 
some  congenial  clime,  where  they  may  be  maintained  to  the  mutual 
benefit  of  all.  This  would  insure  a  separation  of  the  races.  Let 
them  go  into  the  tropics.  There  are  vast  tracts  of  most  fertile  and 
inviting  lands,  in  a  climate  perfectly  congenial  to  that  class  of  men, 
where  the  negro  will  be  predominant,  where  his  nature  seems  to 
be  improved,  and  all  his  faculties,  both  mental  and  physical,  are 
fully  developed,  and  where  the  white  man  degenerates  in  the  same 
proportion  as  the  black  man  prospers.  Let  them  go  there ;  let  them 
be  separated ;  it  is  easy  to  do  it.  They  will  be  so  far  removed  from 
us  that  they  cannot  form  a  disturbing  element  in  wx  political  economy. 
...  I  hope,  after  that  is  done,  to  hear  no  more  about  negro 
equality,  or  anything  of  the  kind.  We  shall  be  as  glad  to  rid  our 
selves  of  these  people  as  anybody  else  can." 

On  the  2ist  of  August,  1858,  at  Ottawa,  111.,  Mr.  Lincoln  said: 

"  I  have  no  purpose  to  introduce  political  and  social  equality  be 
tween  the  white  and  black  races.  There  is  a  physical  difference 
between  the  two,  which,  in  my  judgment,  will  probably  forever  for 
bid  their  living  together  upon  the  footing  of  perfect  equality;  and, 
inasmuch  as  it  becomes  a  necessity  that  there  must  be  a  difference,  I 
am  in  favor  of  the  race  to  which  I  belong  having  the  superior  posi 
tion." 

In  the  course  of  his  canvass  with  Mr.  Douglas,  in  Illinois,  in  1858, 
Mr.  Lincoln  repeatedly  declared  that  he  was  opposed  to  "a  social 
and  political  equality  between  the  white  and  black  races ; ' '  that  he 
"was  not  in  favor  of  negro  citizenship;  "  and  that  he  would  "to 
the  very  last  stand  by  the  law  of  Illinois  which  forbade  the  marriage 
of  white  people  with  negroes."  He  also  declared  that,  in  his 


POSTSCRIPT.  337 

"opinion,  it  would  be  best  for  all  concerned  to  have  the  colored 
population  in  a  State  by  themselves. ' ' 

Finally,  in  his  messages  to  Congress  and  otherwise,  Mr.  Lincoln 
urgently  advocated  gradual  emancipation  with  deportation. 

In  his  annual  message,  December  3,  1861,  he  said  : 

"  To  carry  out  the  plan  of  colonization  may  involve  the  acquiring 
of  territory,  and  also  the  appropriation  of  money  beyond  that  to 
be  expended  in  the  territorial  acquisition.  .  .  .  If  it  be  said  that 
the  only  legitimate  object  of  acquiring  territory  is  to  furnish  homes 
for  white  men,  this  measure  effects  that  object ;  for  the  e?nigration 
of  colored  men  leaves  additional  room  for  white  men  remaining  or 
coming  here.  Mr.  Jefferson,  however,  placed  the  importance  of 
procuring  Louisiana  more  on  political  and  commercial  grounds  than 
on  providing  room  for  population. 

"On  this  whole  proposition,  including  the  appropriation  of  money 
with  the  acquisition  of  territory,  does  not  the  expediency  amount  to 
absolute  necessity — that  without  which  the  Government  itself  cannot 
be  perpetuated  ? ' ' 

This  amounts  to  an  assertion  by  Mr.  Lincoln  that  emancipation 
without  deportation  would  be  national  suicide. 

But  why  tear  from  their  homes,  and  from  the  "  kind,  protecting 
care"  they  then  enjoyed,  4,000,000  of  negroes,  to  banish  them  to 
the  "frightful  misery"  of  taking  care  of  themselves  in  the  Central 
American  States  ?  Did  any  idea  of  good  will  for  the  negroes  enter 
into  this  scheme  for  their  banishment  ?  Surely  not ;  for  when  Mr. 
R.  M.  T.  Hunter,  at  the  Hampton  Roads  conference,  alluded  to 
the  sufferings  which  would  result  to  the  old  and  infirm,  and  to  the 
women  and  children,  who  were  unable  to  support  themselves,  the 
only  answer  was  the  following  story,  told  by  Mr.  Lincoln : 

"An  Illinois  farmer  was  congratulating  himself  with  a  neighbor 
upon  a  great  discovery  he  had  made,  by  which  he  could  economize 
time  and  labor  in  gathering  and  taking  care  of  the  food  crop  for 
his  hogs,  as  well  as  trouble  in  looking  after  and  feeding  them  during 
the  winter. 

"  '  What  is  it?'  said  the  neighbor. 

"  '  Why,  it  is/  said  the  farmer,  '  to  plant  plenty  of  potatoes,  and 


338  POSTSCRIPT. 

ft 
when  they  mature,  without  either  digging  or  housing  them,  turn  the 

hogs  in  the  field,  and  let  them  get  their  own  food  as  they  want  it.' 
"  'But,'  said  the  neighbor,  '  how  will  that  do  when  the  winter 

comes,  and  the  ground  is  hard  frozen  ? ' 
"  'Well,'  said  the  farmer,  ' let  'em  root!'  " 
(See  the  War  between  the  States,  by  A.  H.  Stephens,  vol.  ii.,  p. 

615.     Barrett's  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  827.) 

From  the  inhumanity  of  saying  to  the  old  and  infirm  negroes, 
and  to  the  women  and  children  who  were  unable  to  support  them 
selves,  "Root,  hog,  or  die"  the  Southern  people  shrank  with  greater 
indignation  than  Plutarch  felt  for  Cato.  (See  p.  275.)  There  was 
no  trace  of  benevolence  or  pity  for  the  negroes  in  that  sentiment. 

Did  an  overcrowded  territory  require  that  the  negroes  should  be 
driven  out,  like  the  Indians,  to  make  additional  room  for  white  men? 
It  is  true  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  message  of  December  3,  1861,  gives 
prominence  to  this  argument,  and  his  message  of  December  i,  1862, 
elaborates  the  idea  that  the  time  is  fast  approaching  when  our  popu 
lation  will  have  so  increased,  that,  "instead  of  receiving  the  foreign- 
born,  as  now,  we  shall  be  compelled  to  send  part  of  the  native-born 
(the  negroes}  away. ' '  To  show  when  that  time  would  probably  arrive, 
Mr.  Lincoln,  or  rather  Mr.  Seward,  (for  his  handiwork  is  clearly  per 
ceptible  in  both  messages,)  said :  "  Several  of  our  States  are  already 
above  the  average  of  Europe  —  73^  to  a  square  mile.  Massachu 
setts  has  157,  Rhode  Island  133,  Connecticut  99,  etc.,  etc." 

Then  he  gives  a  tabular  statement  of  decennial  increase,  showing 
that  in  1930  our  population  may  reach  the  overcrowded  number  of 
251,680,914;  and  concludes  thus : 

"  These  figures  show  that  our  country  may  be  as  populous  as 
Europe  now  is,  at  some  point  between  1920  and  1930  —  say  about 
1925  —  our  territory,  at  73^  persons  to  the  square  mile,  being  the 
capacity  to  contain  217,186,000." 

Now,  this  argument  of  Mr.  Seward,  and  his  ingenious  sophistries 
about  capital  and  labor  in  the  same  messages,  were  as  false  and  as 
deceptive  as  his  dogma  of  the  irrepressible  conflict  between  free  labor 
and  slave  labor.  They  were  adroitly  and  ably  prepared  for  the 
express  purpose  of  misleading  and  enticing  the  working  and  burgher 


POSTSCRIPT.  359 

classes  of  the  North  into  an  indiscretion,  a  false  step,  against  their 
natural  ally  and  politically-wedded  spouse ;  the  consequence  of  which 
would  be,  and  since  has  been,  a  declaration  of  the  Attorney-General 
that  labor  is  now  a  divorced  grass-widow  ! 

The  so-miscalled  Republican  party  were  not  acting  in  good  faith 
with  white  labor  when  they  endeavored,  in  1861  and  1862,  to  make 
it  appear  that  their  purpose  was  to  drive  out  the  negroes  to  make 
additional  room  for  the  rapidly  increasing  white  population.  This  is 
apparent  from  the  fact  that,  since  their  object  has  been  accomplished, 
by  divorcing  capital  from  labor  by  emancipation,  we  hear  nothing 
more  said  about  deporting  the  negroes.  So  far  from  being  the  spe 
cial  friends  of  the  negroes,  they  were  actuated  by  a  malevolence  to 
the  negro  almost  as  atrocious  as  Sherman's  treatment  of  the  women 
and  children  of  the  white  working  classes  of  Atlanta.  This  is  ap 
parent  from  the  proposition  to  drive  away  the  negroes  from  their 
comfortable  homes,  and  say  to  their  old  and  infirm  and  women  and 
children,  "  Root  for  yourselves,  like  hogs,  or  die  /  " 

Moreover,  in  the  same  message,  in  speaking  of  our  vast  territory 
of  2,963,000  square  miles,  Mr.  Seward  admits  that  they  furnish 
abundant  room,  a  broad  national  homestead,  an  ample  resource 
against  an  overcrowded  condition  for  at  least  fifty  years  to  come  — 
perhaps  much  longer.  Then,  why  drive  the  poor  negro  away  now, 
into  the  Central  American  States,  to  Santo  Domingo,  or  elsewhere  ? 

Mr.  Seward,  the  Oily  Gammon  of  politics,  throws  out  a  cautious 
intimation  that,  like  Mr.  Jefferson's  acquisition  of  Louisiana,  there 
was  apolitical  object  to  be  gained.  Bluff  Ben  Wade,  in  his  bluff 
way,  blurts  out  the  true  answer,  and  says,  "The  negroes  form  a  dis 
turbing  element  in  our  POLITICAL  ECONOMY.  ' ' 

Why  disturbing  ?  We  have  already  given  the  true  answer,  but  it 
cannot  be  repeated  too  often.  If  Mr.  Wade  was  candidly  and  con 
fidentially  explaining  this  disturbance  to  one  of  his  party  friends  or 
followers,  his  language,  substituting  dashes  for  the  oaths  with  which 
he  sandwiches  his  discourse,  would  be  about  as  follows : 

"  This peculiar  institution,  under  which  these negroes 

exist  in  this  country,  has peculiar  results. ,  it  mar 
ries  capital  to  labor.  It  makes  the owners  of  negroes  vote 

with  the working-men  in  the  North  and  West. they  want 


34O  POSTSCRIPT. 

^ 

to  keep  up  wages,  because  wages  go  into  their pockets.    They 

legislate  with  a  view  to  keep  down  the  cost  of  living,  because  they 

have  to  feed  and  clothe  and  nurse  and  take  care  of  the negroes, 

and  that  comes  out  of  their  pockets.     And ,  they  go  in  for 

what  they  call  an  honest  and  economical  administration  of  the  Gov 
ernment,  and they  oppose  our  little  occasional  appropriations 

of  a  few  millions  or  so,  with  which  to  enrich  our  party  friends ;  and 

,  they  whine  about  these  paltry  millions  coming  partly  out  of 

their  own  pockets  and  partly  out  of  the  pockets  of  the work 
ing  and  burgher  classes  of  the  North  and  West.     But ,  these 

owners  of  negroes  treat poor  white  men  as  equals.     Now, 

all  these disturbances  of  our  political  economy  grow  out  of  this 

marriage  of  capital  to  labor  in  the  South.  We  must  divorce,  them. 

We  must  separate  the  white  from  the negro  race.    We  must  send 

the negroes  off  into  the  tropics.     Then  Southern  capital  will 

vote  with  Northern  and  Western  capital,  and  we  can,  by  subtle  and 
artful  fiscal  contrivances  of  legislation,  impose  as  many  burdens  on 

the working-men,  and  grant  as  many  privileges  to  capital,  and 

make  as  many  and  as  large  appropriations  for  the  benefit  of  our 

party  friends  as  we please.     And  if  we  can  get  rid  of  these 

negroes  by  sending  them  away  into  the  tropics,  we  can  get 

rid  of  the democratic  notion  of  the slave  power  about 

the  equality  of  white  men,  which  this peculiar  institution 

fosters." 

As  we  have  said,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Seward  prepared 
those  portions  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  annual  messages  of  1861  and  1862 
relative  to  the  deportation  of  the  colored  population.  It  is  not  to 
be  supposed,  however,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  would  have  sent  those  mes 
sages  to  Congress  without  the  concurrence  and  approval  of  the  other 
members  of  his  cabinet.  These  were  S.  P.  Chase,  Simon  Cameron, 
Gideon  Welles,  Caleb  B.  Smith,  Edward  Bates,  and  Edwin  M. 
Stanton.  Now,  if  Mr.  Lincoln  and  these  his  cabinet  officers,  and 
Senators  Trumbull,  Wade,  and  Sherman  are  to  be  accepted  as  the 
authorized  exponents  of  the  principles  and  policy  of  the  so-miscalled 
Republican  party,  we  have,  in  these  messages  and  in  the  speeches 
of  those  senators,  an  official  declaration  of  a  purpose  to  drive  the 
colored  population  out  of  the  country,  to  make  more  room  for  white 


POSTSCRIPT.  341 

population,  accompanied  with  the  suggestion  that  it  was  a  necessity, 
without  which  t:he  Government  itself  could  not  be  perpetuated  ! 

Let  the  colored  population  bear  this  always  in  mind ! ! 

Let  the  white  population  of  the  North  and  West  bear  in  mind 
that  since  then  the  so-miscalled  Republican  party  have  taken  a  new 
departure  ! ! ! 

Now,  instead  of  "  sending  the  negro  population  into  the  Central 
American  States,  where  they  may  be  free  from  the  domination  of 
the  white  race,"  they  have  subjected  the  white  race  in  the  South  to 
the  domination  of  the  negro.  Why  this  new  departure  ?  Because 
they  wish  to  use  the  cheaply  purchasable  votes  of  the  negro  freed- 
men  to  neutralize  the  votes  of  the  white  working  and  burgher 
classes  of  the  North  and  West,  and  hope  so  to  use  4,000,000  of 
negro  freedmen  as  to  secure  to  themselves  the  power  to  govern  and 
tax  40,000,000  of  whites. 

What  Attorney-General  Akerman  says  is  true:  "Emancipation 
has  DIVORCED  the  interests  of  CAPITAL  from  the  interests  of  LABOR.  ' ' 
By  this  divorce  the  working  and  burgher  classes  have  lost  their 
"  natural  ally  "  Now,  they  must,  single-handed  and  alone,  resist 
the  encroachments  of  power,  and  the  "subtle  and  artful  fiscal  con 
trivances  by  which  capital  seeks  to  divide  the  wealth  of  all  civilized 
communities  so  unequally,  and  to  allot  so  small  a  share  to  those  by 
whose  labor  it  was  produced,  and  so  large  a  share  to  the  non-pro 
ducing  classes." 

This  divorce  was  intended  to  be,  and  is,  complete  and  perpetual. 
It  is  a  divorce  a  mensa  et  thoro  and  a  vinctdo.  There  is  no  appeal. 
The  decree  is  irreversible,  and  it  forbids  the  parties  from  marrying 
again.  No  one  at  the  North  or  West,  not  one  in  ten  thousand  at 
the  South,  indulges  in  the  delusive  dream  of  a  restoration  of  negro 
slavery. 

What  remains  ?  Much  of  hope  and  encouragement  in  the  future 
of  the  working  and  burgher  classes.  With  their  eyes  opened  to  the 
tricks  by  which  centralism  and  capital  cajoled  them  into  a  crusade- 
against  their  natural  allies,  and  by  brute  force  "  divorced  capital 
from  labor  by  emancipation,"  they  may  find  in  the  experience  of  the 
past  a  light  to  guide  them  in  the  future..  If  they  would  successfully 
resist  the  encroachments  of  power,  and  the  artful  contrivances  of 
capital,  they  must  go  back  to  the  political  principles  of  Washington, 


342  POSTSCRIPT. 

% 

Jefferson,  and  Calhoun  ;  principles  which  Washington,  Jefferson, 
and  Calhoun  termed  republican,  while  the  monarchists  and  capital 
ists  of  New  England,  in  derision  and  by  way  of  reproach,  called 
them  democratic. 

A  few  more  words  to  the  National  Labor  party.  On  the  25th  of 
January,  1871,  their  committee,  under  a  resolution  of  the  National 
Labor  Congress  held  at  Cincinnati,  in  August,  1870,  called  a  conven 
tion  to  meet  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  at  10  o'  clock,  A.  M.,  on  the  third 
Wednesday  of  October,  1871,  for  the  purpose  of.  nominating  candi 
dates  for  the  offices  of  President  and  Vice -President  ofUhe  United 
States,  and  the  transaction  of  such  other  business  as  may  properly 
come  before  them. 

On  the  2pth  of  May,  1871,  H.  M.  Turner,  (negro,) -as  President 
of  the  Georgia  State  Convention,  issued  a  proclamation  addressed 
' '  to  the  colored  citizens  of  the  States  of  Alabama,  Arkansas,  Dela 
ware,  Florida,  Georgia,  Kentucky,  Louisiana,  Tennessee,  Maryland, 
Mississippi,  Missouri,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Texas,  Vir 
ginia,  West  Virginia,  and  the  Territory  of  Columbia." 

This  proclamation  calls  a  convention  of  the  colored  citizens  of  the 
States  above  named  to  meet  at  Columbia,  S.  C.,  on  the  i&th  day  of 
October,  1871,  at  12  o1  clock,  M. 

Now  let  the  working  and  burgher  classes  of  the  North  and  West 
take  special  notice  of  these  dates!  Why  this  call,  in  May,  1871, 
for  a  negro  convention  at  Columbia  on  the  same  day  in  October 
selected  by  the  committee  of  the  National  Labor  party  as  early  as 
January,  1871  ? 

It  is  another  trick  of  imperialism  and  capital  to  organize  ihe 
negro  vote  of  all  the  Southern  States  in  the  interest  of  imperialism 
and  capital,  and  to  neutralize  by  that  negro  vote  of  the  Southern  States 
any  action  that  may  be  taken  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  by  the  working 
and  burgher  classes  of  the  North  and  West,  against  the  interests  of 
imperialism  and  capital. 

Look  into  and  think  about  the  purposes  and  objects  of  this  little 
trick  ! 

BEN.  E.  GREEN. 

WASHINGTON,  June  12th,  1871. 


ADDENDA  TO  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 


SUPPLEMENT  TO  THE  FOURTH  ANNUAL  REPORT  OF  THE  SPECIAL  COMMISSION 
ERS  OF  THE  REVENUE.  COST  OF  LABOR  AND  SUBSISTENCE  IN  THE  UNITED 
STATES.  TABLES  SHOWING  THE  COMPARATIVE  AND  AVERAGE  WEEKLY  WAGES 
PAID,  ETC.,  ETC.  PREPARED  BY  EDWARD  YOUNG,  IN  CHARGE  OF  THE  BU- 
REAU  OF  STATISTICS.  WASHINGTON  :  GOVERNMENT  PRINTING-OFFICE.  1870. 

THE  foregoing  is  the  title  of  an  official  document  sent  to  us  by  a 
Member  of  Congress,*  to  convince  us,  by  the  statistics  it  pro 
fesses  to  give,  that  we  are  wrong  in  our  historic  theory  that  one  of 
the  main  purposes  and  results  of  the  late  civil  war  was  to  reduce 
wages  and  increase  the  cost  of  living. 

On  careful  examination,  we  find  this  document  remarkable  alike 
for  the  absurdity  of  its  multitudinous  errors,  and  for  the  very  man 
ifest  purpose  of  deception,  with  which  it  has  been  carefully  and 
elaborately  prepared,  as  a  campaign  document,  to  mislead  and  again 
betray  the  working  and  burgher  classes  into  the  support  of  the  (so- 
wjVcalled)  Republican  party. 

In  seventy-five  octavo  pages  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  gives  sixty- 
seven  tables  of  figures,  doubtless  supposing  that  no  one  would  ever 
take  the  trouble  to  wade  through  them. 

The  first  fifty-eight  tables  are  intended  to  produce  the  impression 
that,  under  the  policy  of  the  (so-miscalled)  Republican  Administra 
tion,  there  has  been  an  increase  in  wages,  amounting  to  an  average 
of  forty-eight  per  cent.,  as  summed  up  in  Table  57,  on  page  57,  as 
follows : 

*  Hon.  John  Coburn,  of  Indiana. 

343 


344 


ADDENDA    TO    TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE. 


TABLE  SHOWING  THE  PERCENTAGE  OF  INCREASE  IN  MONTHLY  WAGES,  WITH  BOARD,  PAID  FOR 

AND  OTHER  LABOR,  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES,  IN  1869  °VER  1860. 


STATES. 

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Average  in 
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20    ' 

18 
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38 

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27 
66 

31 
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55 

£ 

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55 
96 
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29    • 
19 
28 

s. 

23 

11 

40 
43 
29 

48 

Rhode  Island                                     . 

New  York          

Ohio                         * 

Nebraska 

Texas                                                         .         *     * 

Average  in  United  States,  exclusive  of  Pacific 

5i 

5i 

47 

46 

46 

51 

*  The  percentages  of  increase  here  given,  although  accurately  computed,  do  not  indicate  the 
true  advance  in  the  wages  paid.  This  arises  from  the  fact  that  while  there  were  nineteen  returns 
from  Georgia  giving  the  wages  in  1869,  but  six  of  them  gave  those  of  1860.  The  true  increase  in 
the  monthly  wages  paid  in  1869  over  1860  was  about  23  per  cent,  instead  of  n. 

Under  the  heading,  "  EXPENSES  OF  LIVING,"  Tables  59  to  66, 
both  included,  (pages  5$  to  73,)  are  intended  to  produce  the  im 
pression  that  the  cost  of  living  has  been  reduced,  while  wages  have 
gone  up  48  per  cent,  on  an  average.  In  order  to  make  this  appear, 
the  Bureau  of  Statistics  selects  the  years  1867  and  1869  for  compar 
ison,  and  gives  prominence  to  wheat  flour,  which,  for  New  England, 
it  puts  at  $12.35  in  l8^7,  and  $9.15  in  1869;  for  the  Middle  States, 
at  ^12.50  in  1867,  and  $7.85  in  1869 ;  for  a  portion  of  thfe  Western 


ADDENDA    TO    TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE.  345 

States,  at  $12.71  in  1867,  and  $6.41  in  1869;  for  other  Western 
States  and  Territories,  at  $8.67  in  1867,  and  $5.35  in  1869 ;  and  for 
the  Southern  States,  at  $10.72  in  1867,  and  $9.50  in  1869. 
The  poet  says : 

"  Oh !  what  a  tangled  web  we  weave 
When  first  we  practise  to  deceive." 

The  Bureau  of  Statistics,  absorbed  in  its  figures,  had  never  read 
these  lines,  or  did  not  appreciate  the  exhortation  to  honest  dealing 
which  they  contain ;  or  else  it  relied  on  its  formidable  array  of 
figures  to  deter  any  one  from  attempting  to  unravel  its  tangled  web 
of  deceit.  It  is  obvious  that  the  Bureau  was  "practising  to  deceive  " 
when  it  selected  the  years  1867  and  1869,  and  gave  this  prominence 
to  the  varying  price  of  wheat  flour,  in  order  to  produce  the  impres 
sion  on  the  working  and  burgher  classes  that  the  effect  of  Radical 
policy  had  been  to  reduce  the  cost  of  living.  For,  this  difference 
in  the  price  of  flour  was  caused,  not  by  any  beneficial  influence  of 
Radical  policy,  but  partly  by  the  difference  in  the  seasons,  and  partly 
by  that  subtle  and  artful  fiscal  contrivance,  by  which  the  wheat-grow 
ers  of  the  West  are  placed  in  the  power  of  the  great  moneyed  aristo 
cracy  for  the  means,  with  which  to  move  their  crops  to  market;  there 
by  enabling  Eastern  capital  to  depress  the  price  of  Western  wheat 
at  pleasure. 

But  even  admitting  that  the  Bureau's  figures  are  correct  and  reli 
able,  (which  they  are  not,)  they  disprove  the  very  idea,  which  this 
elaborate  document  was  concocted  to  sustain.  For  on  pages  74  and 
75  we  have  a  table  of  the  "comparative  cost  of  building-materials, 
and  of  dwelling-houses,"  in  1861  and  1869,  which  shows  that  "the 
true  average  increase  in  the  cost  of  materials  and  labor  required  in 
building  a  dwelling-house  suitable  for  workmen  was  88  per  cent." 

Now,  this  is  a  much  more  reliable  criterion  of  the  increase  or 
decrease  of  the  cost  of  living  than  the  difference  between  the  cost 
of  wheat  flour  in  1867  and  1869  ;  and  even  if  it  were  true  that  wages 
had  advanced  48  per  cent,  from  1860  to  1869,  how  are  the  working 
and  burgher  classes  benefited,  when  that  increase  of  wages  is  accom 
panied  by  an  increase  of  88  per  cent,  in  the  cost  of  living? 

As  to  Table  57,  page  57,  (above  quoted,)  which  pretends  to  show 
23 


346  ADDENDA    TO    TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE. 

% 
the  percentage  of  increase  in  monthly  wages,  with  beared,  etc.,  we 

know  that  in  Georgia,  where  we  have  lived  since  1855,  and  we  be 
lieve  that  in  the  other  Southern  States,  instead  of  an  increase  of  23, 
or  even  n  per  cent.,  there  has  been  an  actual  decrease  of  from  25 
to  50  per  cent,  on  a  general  average,  and  not  taking  into  account 
the  exceptional  cases  of  high  wages  paid  for  hands  in  some  of  the 
swindling  railroad  operations,  based  on  State  bonds,  which,  if  not 
repudiated,  will  bankrupt  the  States  for  the  profit  of  a  few  individual 
carpet-baggers  and  scalawags. 

Neither  can  we  believe  that  this  table  is  reliable  as  to  the  Eastern, 
Middle,  and  Western  States. 

First,  because  we  know  that  it  is  wrong  as  to  Georgia,  and  believe 
it  to  be  wrong  as  to  other  Southern  States. 

Secondly,  because  it  is  obviously  got  up  with  great  care  in  the  in 
terest  of  the  Radical  party,  and  with  a  premeditated  design  to  "prac 
tise  to  deceive." 

Thirdly,  because,  as  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  admits,  in  an  intro 
ductory  note,  it  is  "the  result,  mainly,  of  inquiries  made  through 
the  assistant  assessors  of  internal  revenue  in  the  various  collection 
districts  of  the  United  States" — a  very  unreliable  authority. 

Finally,  because  a  mere  reading  of  Table  65,  on  page  72,  which 
professes  to  give  a  summary  of  the  results  of  all  these  inquiries  and 
figures,  will  show  to  any  man  of  common  sense  that  it  is  utterly 
unreliable,  not  to  use  the  much  stronger  language  which  the  absurd 
ities  of  that  table  would  suggest. 

It  is  as  follows : 


ADDENDA    TO    TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE. 


347 


TABLE  SHOWING  THE  AVERAGE  WEEKLY  EXPENDITURES  OF  WORKMEN'S  FAMILIES  IN  SOME  OF 
THE  MANUFACTURING  TOWNS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  1860. 


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Total  per  week  (clothing  ex- 

39 
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*  The  increased  cost  of  house  rent,  and  the  use  of  more  expensive  provisions,  render  the  expenses 
of  these  families  higher  than  some  of  larger  size. 

f  Not  furnished  in  1867.  Deducting  these,  the  average  weekly  expenses  of  families  in  1869,  as 
compared  with  1867,  will  be  reduced  to  $13.88. 

This  table  presents  results  that  would  make  Mai  thus,  dead  as  he 
is,  open  his  eyes  with  astonishment.  We  earnestly  recommend  to 
all,  who  are  contemplating  obedience  to  the  Scriptural  injunction, 
"  increase  and  multiply"  to  study  it  carefully.  It  would  be  too 
tedious  to  point  out  all  its  peculiarities.  A  few  will  suffice  to  direct 
attention  to  the  others. 

ist.  According  to  this  table,  the  average  expense  per  week  of  a 
workman  and  wife  with  seven  children  for  bread  and  flour  is  $2.50; 
with  eight  children,  only  $2.37. 

2d.  With  six  children,  their  average  weekly  expense  for  lard  will 
be  63  cents  ;  with  seven  children,  only  33  cents. 

3d.  Their  average  weekly  expense  for  butter  will  be,  without 
children,  $1.00;  with  one  child,  only  71  cents;  with  two  children, 
82  cents;  with  three  children,  $1.10;  with  four  children,  $1.26; 
with  five  children,  only  98  cents,  etc.,  etc. 


348 


ADDENDA    TO    TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE. 


4th.  Their  average  weekly  expense  for  cheese  will  be,  without 
children,  20  cents;  with  one  child,  12  cents;  with  two  children,  14 
cents  ;  with  three  children,  16  cents;  with  four  children,  20  cents; 
with  five  children,  n  cents;  and  with  eight  children,  18  cents. 

5th.  Their  average  weekly  expense,  without  children,  for  sugar 
and  molasses,  will  be  69  cents;  with  four  children,  $1.18;  with 
seven  children,  only  76  cents. 

6th.  Their  average  weekly  expense  for  milk  will  be,  without 
children,  59  cents ;  with  one  child,  41  cents ;  with  two  children, 
44  cents;  with  three  children,  37  cents;  with  four  children,  50 
cents;  with  five  children,  58  cents;  with  six  children,  26  cents; 
with  seven  children,  56  cents;  and  with  eight  children,  $1.26. 

Finally,  and  funniest  of  all  —  even  funnier  than  the  allowance, 
on  a  general  average,  of  59  cents  for  milk  to  a  workman  and  wife 
\vithout  children,  and  only  26  cents  for  a  workman  and  wife  with 
six  children  —  is  the  Bureau's  estimate  for  soap  and  starch:. 

It  allows  to  a  man  and  wife  without  children,  per  week  25  cents. 


with  i  child, 

17 

"    2  children, 

22 

"    3 

17 

"    4 

23 

25 

18 

"    7 

16      ' 

"    8 

54      ' 

Without  wasting  more  time,  the  reader  will  find  similar  absurdities 
running  through  the  whole  of  this  and  other  tables  of  this  precious 
production  of  the  Radical  Bureau  of  Statistics.  It  might  excite  mer 
riment  and  laughter,  if  indignation  at  such  palpable  partisan  patch 
work  would  admit  of  pleasantry.  But  the  question  is  too  serious  for 
mirth.  These  tables  have  been  laboriously  prepared  in  the  interest 
of  the  monarchical,  aristocratic,  cheap-labor  party,  and  on  the  sup 
position  that  the  great  mass  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  — 
lawyers,  doctors,  ministers  of  the  gospel,  merchants,  civil  engineers, 
etc.,  etc.,  as  well  as  the  working-men  —  were  too  busy  with  their  own 
private  affairs,  or  too  ignorant,  to  discover  and  expose  the  deceit 
attempted  to  be  practised  upon  them  by  this  array  of  figures. 

When  we  examined  the  figures,  we  thought,  surely ',  these  must  be 
typographical  errors.  We  therefore  called  upon  Mr.  Edward 
Young,  at  the  Bureau  of  Statistics,  in  the  Treasury  Department, 
and  asked  him  whether  there  were  any  typographical  errors  in 


ADDENDA    TO    TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE.  349 

his  tables.  He  said,  "No."  We  then  asked  him  to  explain  by 
what  process  of  computation  he  arrived  at  such  wonderful  results, 
according  to  which  a  husband  and  wife,  without  children,  required 
25  cents'  worth  of  soap  and  starch  per  week ;  with  one  child,  only 
17  cents ;  with  six  children,  18  cents  ;  and  with  seven  childen,  only 
1 6  cents. 

The  reply,  not  very  courteously  given,  was:  "That  table  has 
been  criticized  before,  and  where  there  is  a  determination  to  criti 
cize,  anything  may  be  criticized."  Pursuing  information  under  diffi 
culties,  we  persisted,  and  at  last  drew  out  this  explanation,  viz.  that 
the  first  nine  columns  of  figures  do  not  represent  averages,  as  the 
heading  would  indicate,  but  only  the  expenditures  of  single  selected 
families,  the  averages  being  given  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  columns, 
so  as  to  show  a  reduction  in  the  cost  of  living  from  1867  to  1869. 

Our  interview  with  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  convinced  us  that  its 
tables  were  manufactured  solely  for  partisan  purposes,  and  are 
utterly  unreliable,  except  in  so  far  as  they  show,  on  page  75,  that 
the  true  average  increase  in  the  cost  of  materials  and  labor  required 
in  building  a  dwelling-house  suitable  for  workmen  has  been  88  per 
cent,  in  the  ten  years  that  the  so-miscalled  Republican  party  have 
been  in  power. 


INDEX 


TO 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE  AND  NOTES. 


ADAMS,  JOHN,  xiv.,  xvii.,  xxiii. 
Adams,  John  Q.,  xx.,  xl. 
Adams,  Samuel,  xx. 

Akerman,  Attorney-General,  xxix.,  xlix. 
Alaric,  296. 

Alexander  the  Great,  303. 
Amalgamation,  xlvii. 
Anderson,  Gen.  Robert,  xliv. 
Angouleme,  149. 
Appropriate  music,  305. 
Armstrong,  Gen.,  xl. 
Art  and  artists,  305. 
Asiatic  slave  trade,  xlvii. 
Atlanta,  burned  by  Sherman,  295. 
Attila,  296. 

Benjamin,  J.  P.,  xlvi. 

Blair,  Francis  P.,  xxxvi.-xl.,  xliii. 

Blood-letting,  xlv. 

Boston,  working  women  in,  1. 

Boulogne,  149. 

Breckenridge,  John  C.,  xli. 

Bribery  at  elections,  xxvii. 

British  policy,  xxxix. 

Brown,  John,  xliv.,  277,  305. 

Brown,  Jos.  E.,  Gov.  of  Ga  ,  xxxv.,  xlvi. 

Buchanan,  President  James,  xii.,  xlv. 

Bullock,  Rufus  K.,Gov.  of  Ga.,  276,  281. 

Burlingame's  mission  to  China,  fix. 

Burning,  see  W.  Tecumseh  Sherman. 

Calhoun,  James  M.,  297. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  xxxiii.,  xxxvii.,  87. 

Cameron,  Simon,  340. 

Capital  divorced  from  labor,  xxix.,  xlix. 

Cassagnac,    A.    G.    de,     viii.,    xxxii., 

xxxviii.,  87. 
Catholics,  Roman,  295. 
Census  of  1860,  xlvii. 
Chandler,  Zach.,  Senator,  xlv. 
Chase,  Salmon  P.,  xxvii.,  xxxi.,  xxxviii. 
Chinese  labor,  food,  and  wages,  liii. 


Cincinnati  Commercial,  liii. 

Classes,  struggle  of,  xxx. 

Clephane,  Lewis,  xliii. 

Coburn,  Col.John,  captor  of  Atlanta,  299, 

343- 

Columbia,  District  of,  148. 
Columbia,  S.  C.,  293. 
Colwell,  Stephen,  vii. 
Commune,  right  of,  148. 
Connecticut  Reserve,  295. 
Consolidation,  xxi. 

Contracts  for  army  and  navy  supplies,  xlv. 
Covode  investigating  committee,  xxvii. 
Crockery.    See  W.  T.  Sherman. 
Crusades,  effects  of,  xxiv. 
Curtis's  Pac.  R.  R.  bill,  xli. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  xi. 

Delescluze,  307. 

Delilah  and  Samson,  273. 

District  of  Columbia,  148. 

Disunion    resolutions    at    Worcester, 

Mass.,  xlii. 

Divorce  of  capital  from  labor,  xxix.,  Ixi. 
Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  xli. 

Edict  of  Moulins,  148. 

Federalists,  xx. 

Female  influence  on  government,  272. 
Freedman's  Bureau,  127,  148. 
Fullerton,  Gen.  J.  S.,  127. 

Genghis  Khan,  296. 

Georgetown,  D.  C.,  149. 

Georgetown  College,  viii. 

Giles,  Gov.  of  Virginia,  xxi. 

Goodloe,  Daniel  R.,  xliii.,  281. 

Gordon,  Gen.  John  B.,  Ixiv. 

Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  xix.,  266, 

292. 

Grant,  Gen.  Ulysses  S.,  xviii.-xix.,  292. 
Grass  widows,  Ixi. 

351 


352    INDEX  TO  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE  AND  NOTES. 


Greeley,  Horace,  xliv. 

Green,  Gen.  Duff,  xi.,  xli.,  xlv. 

Guizot,  Mons.,  ix.-x.,  xxx.,  148. 

Hamilton,  Gov.  of  S.  C,  xxxvii. 
Hampton,  Gen.  Wade,  293. 
Harlan,  Sec.  of  Interior,  274. 
Harper's  Ferry,  xliv.,  277,  305. 
Harvard  University,  xvii. 
Henry,  John,  British  agent   in  Boston, 

xxxix. 

Heraldry  and  genealogy,  xvii; 
Holden,  Gov.  of  N.  C.,  150,  276,  280. 
Hood,  Gen.,  303. 
Howard,  Gen.  O.  O.,  126,  311. 

Imperialist,  newspaper,  xix. 
Incendiarism.      See  John    Brown  and 

W.  T.  Sherman. 
Intermarriage  of  whites  and  blacks,  xlvii. 

Jefferson,  Thos.,  xxi.,  xxviii. 
Jenkins's  life  of  Calhoun,  xxxvi. 
Johnson,  Andrew,  xlviii. 
Johnson,  Herschel  V.,  xli. 
Journal  of  Commerce,  xlii. 

Koopmanschap,  lii. 

Labor  statistics,  (Mass.,)  xlix. 

Lee,  Gen.  Robert  E.,  xlviii.,  329. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  xi.,  xl., xli.,  xlv.,  272. 

Lippincott's  Magazine,  xvii. 

Logan,  Grand  Commander,  266,  292. 

Marietta,  Ga.,  burned  by  Sherman,  305. 
Massachusetts,  xlii.,  xlix.,  295,  305. 
Memphis  Commercial  Convention,  xxi., 

Ixi. 

Middle  States,  xvi. 
Music,  appropriate,  305. 
New  England: 

Cheap  labor,  xxvii.-xlix. 

Monarchical  and  aristocratic,  xiv. 

Slave-trading,  xxiii. 
New  York  Herald,  127.  ' 
New  York  Times,  li. 
New  York  Tribune,  127. 
Nicholas,  Judge,  of  Kentucky,  xiii. 
Nichols,  Brevet  Maj.  Geo.  Ward,  303. 
Non-slaveholders,  xlvii. 
North  Carolina  outrages,  229,  279. 

Northwestern  Territory,  xli.,  20 q,  10$. 
it  *•   1 1  •  J-*       .  J  7         '     s  j)  %J   .) 

JN  unification,  xxxvi. 

Pacific  Railroad,  xji. 
Party  names,  xx. 


|  Peons,  3^2. 

Pickett,  Col.  John  T.,  329. 
Porus,  303. 

Rawlings,  Gen.,  xix. 

Raymond,  H.  J.,  li. 

Rheims,  149... 

Rhett,  R.  B.,  xlvi. 

Ritchie,  Thomas,  xxvi.-xl. 

Rome,  Ga.,  burned.     See  Sherman. 

Scott,  Gov.  of  S.  C.,  276,  281,  311. 
Seward,     Wm.    H.,    xxvii.-xxxi., 

xxxviii.-xxxix.,  338. 
Seymour,  Horatio,  liv. 
Sherman,  Gen.  W.  Tecumseh,  292. 
Sherman,  Senator  John,  303. 
Slaveholders,  xlvii. 
Smith,  Rev.  J.  B.,  230,  278. 
Sprague,  Senator,  xxxi.,  Ixi. 
Steadman,  Gen.  J.  B.,  127. 
Stephens,  Alex.  H.,  xiii. 
Sumner,  Senator  Charles,  x. 
Sylla,  xix. 

Toombs,  Robert,  xlvi. 
Toulouse,  149. 

University    of  Alabama    burned,    306. 

See  Sherman. 

University  of  Virginia,  viii. 
Usher,  Sec.  of  Interior,  274. 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  xl. 
Virginia,  xli.,  295. 

Virginia    and    Kentucky    resolutions, 
xxxvi. 

Wade,  Ben,  xlvi.,  336,  339. 

Walker,  Gen.  W.  S.,  Ixiv. 

Washburne,  U.  S.  Minister  at  Paris,  296. 

Washington  City,  149. 

Webster,  Daniel,  xli.,  295,  305. 

Weitzel,  Gen.,  xii. 

West  Indies,  119. 

Wilderness,  battles  of,  296. 

Wilson,  Bill,  130. 

Wilson,  Senator  Henry,  172,  274. 

Wood,  Fernando,  126. 

Worcester  (Mass.)  disunion  resolutions, 

xlii. 
Working  women  of  Boston,  1. 

Yale  College,  xvii. 
Yancey,  W.  L.,  xlvi. 


FINIS. 


14  DAY  USE 

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